
Book -Q 6 

Copyrights? 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




GEOFFREY CHAUCER 



THE POETS' SONG 
OF POETS 

Anna Sheldon Camp Sneath 



Bards of Passion and of Mirth, 
Ye have left your souls on earth! 
Have ye souls in heaven too, 
Double-lived in regions new? 

— John Keats 




RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 
BOSTON 



Copyright 1912, by Anna Sheldon Camp Sneath 
All rights reserved 






The Gorkam Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



CCLA312723 



TO MY HUSBAND 



PREFACE 

This book, as its title indicates, is a collection of poems 
in which the poets express their appreciation and estimate 
of their fellow poets. Except in a few instances, their 
attitude is eminently just, and this expression of their 
views constitutes a unique and important contribution to 
literary criticism. Poetry relating to English poets only 
is included in the collection. It is hoped that the book 
may prove interesting and serviceable to lovers of poets 
and their art. 

The editor desires to offer her thanks and acknowledg- 
ment to: 

The Century Company and to Dr. S. Weir Mitchell for 
the use of his poems "Coleridge at Chamouny" and 
"Tennyson." 

To Houghton Mifflin Company for permission to use 
Bayard Taylor's "Ode to Shelley"; E. C. Stedman's 
"Byron"; Harriet P. Spofford's "Goldsmith's Whistle"; 
J. G. Whittier's "Burns" and "Wordsworth"; O. W. 
Holmes' "For the Burns Centennial Celebration," "After 
a Lecture on Shelley," "After a Lecture on Keats," 
"After a Lecture on Wordsworth"; T. B. Aldrich's 
" Tennyson " ; Henry W. Longfellow's " Chaucer, " " Shake- 
speare," "Milton," "Robert Burns," "Keats," "Wapentake 
To Alfred Tennyson"; Richard Watson Gilder's "An In- 
scription in Rome," and "Keats"; J. R. Lowell's "To 
the Spirit of Keats. " 

To the John Lane Company, New York, and John Lane, 
The Bodley Head, London, for Robert Stephen Hawker's 
"Alfred Tennyson"; William Watson's "The Scott 
Monument," "Shelley Centenary," "To James Brom- 



ley," "Lines in a Fly-leaf of Christabel, " "Lachrymae 
Musarum," and "To Lord Tennyson." 

To Little, Brown & Company for Dante Gabriel Ros- 
setti's "Percy Bysshe Shelley," "John Keats," and 
"Samuel Taylor Coleridge." 

To Lloyd Mifflin for his sonnets "Milton" and "Tenny- 
son, In Memoriam, 1892. " 

To the Macmillan Company for Matthew Arnold's 
"Shakespeare," "Memorial Verses (Byron and Words- 
worth)"; Aubrey De Vere's "In Spring," "To Burns' 
Highland Mary," "Coleridge," "Alfred Tennyson," 
"Robert Browning"; and Francis T. Palgrave's "William 
Wordsworth." 

To Charles Scribner's Sons for Andrew Lang's "Epistle 
to Mr. Alexander Pope," "To Lord Byron"; Henry Van 
Dyke's "Tennyson"; Richard Henry Stoddard's "William 
Shakespeare," "To the Memory of Keats"; and George 
Meredith's "The Poetry of Chaucer," "The Poetry of 
Spenser," "The Poetry of Shakespeare," "The Spirit of 
Shakespeare," "The Poetry of Milton," "The Poetry of 
Shelley, " "The Poetry of Keats, " "The Poetry of Words- 
worth," "The Poetry of Southey," and "The Poetry 
of Coleridge." 

A. S. C. S. 

New Haven, Ct., January, 1912. 



CONTENTS 

Geoffrey Chaucer 

Of Poets and Poesy 15 

Of English Verse 15 

An Account of the Greatest English Poets 16 

Inscription for a Statue of Chaucer at Woodstock. ... 16 

The Progress of Envy 17 

To Chaucer. 17 

Chaucer and Windsor 18 

Written on the Blank Space of a Leaf at the end of 

Chaucer's tale of "The Flowre and the Life". ... 19 

Chaucer 19 

A Dream of Fair Women 20 

In Spring 20 

The Poetry of Chaucer 21 

On a Country Road 21 

Edmund Spenser 

Of Poets and Poesy 25 

An Account of the Greatest English Poets 25 

Ode to the King 26 

The Prelude 26 

The Lay of the Laureate 27 

Sonnet 27 

Spenser 28 

The Poetry of Spenser 29 

William Shakespeare 

The Teares of the Muses 33 

Of Poets and Poesy 33 

To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author, Master 

William Shakespeare; and What He Hath Left Us 33 

On Shakespeare 36 

Prologue 36 



The Progress of Poesy 87 

Warwickshire 37 

Inscriptions 39 

Shakespeare 39 

To Shakespeare 41 

Shakespeare 42 

The Names 42 

Shakespeare 43 

William Shakespeare 43 

The Spirit of Shakespeare 47 

The Poetry of Shakespeare 48 

Stratford-on-Avon 48 

William Shakespeare 49 

Ben Jonson 

Of Poets and Poesy 53 

Prayer to Ben Jonson 53 

An Ode for Ben Jonson 53 

Upon Ben Jonson 54 

Prologue 55 

The Rosciad 56 

Ben Jonson 56 

John Milton 

Under the Portrait of John Milton 59 

On Master Milton's "Paradise Lost" 59 

An Account of the Greatest English Poets 61 

The Seasons — Summer 62 

The Progress of Poesy 62 

Milton— In Youth 63 

Milton— In Age . 63 

Sonnet 64 

Fragment: Milton's Spirit 64 

On a Lock of Milton's Hair 65 

Milton 66 

Milton 67 

The Poetry of Milton 67 

Milton 67 

To Milton— Blind 68 



John Drtden 

A Satire Against Wit 71 

An Account of the Greatest English Poets 71 

To Mr. Dryden 72 

The First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace 73 

Marmion 73 

The Village Curate 74 

Dryden 74 

Alexander Pope 

To Mr. Pope 79 

On a Miscellany of Poems 79 

The Wanderer 79 

Lines to Alexander Pope 80 

Table Talk 80 

To Mr. Pope 81 

Epistle to Mr. Alexander Pope 83 

Oliver Goldsmith 

Jupiter and Mercury 89 

The Streatham Portraits 89 

Erin 90 

Young and his Contemporaries 90 

Goldsmith's Whistle 91 

William Cowper 

In Memory of William Cowper, Esq 95 

The Pursuits of Literature 95 

The Harp, and Despair, of Cowper 95 

Last Fruit off an Old Tree 96 

Cowper's Grave 97 

To Cowper 100 

Robert Burns 

A Bard's Epitaph 105 

At the Grave of Burns 106 

Thoughts 108 

Robert Burns 110 



Written in Burns' Cottage 112 

Robert Burns 112 

Burns 114 

For the Burns Centennial Celebration 118 

To Burns' "Highland Mary" 120 

Burns: An Ode 125 

Sir Walter Scott 

To Sir Walter Scott 131 

The Queen's Wake. 131 

On the Departure of Sir Walter Scott from Abbotts- 
ford for Naples 132 

Yarrow Revisited 132 

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers 133 

Introductions to Lays and Legends of Ancient Greece 134 

The Scott Monument, Princess Street, Edinburgh . . 134 

William Wordsworth 

To a Gentleman 137 

To Wordsworth 140 

The Last Fruit off an Old Tree 143 

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers 143 

To Wordsworth 144 

To Wordsworth 144 

To Wordsworth 145 

Wordsworth 146 

On a Portrait of Wordsworth by B. R. Haydon 147 

After a Lecture on Wordsworth 147 

Memorial Verses 151 

William Wordsworth 152 

The Poetry of Wordsworth 154 

To Wordsworth 154 

Wordsworth's Grave 154 

To James Bromley 161 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 

From the Prelude 165 

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers 166 

On Reading Coleridge's Epitaph Written by Himself 166 



Coleridge 167 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 168 

The Poetry of Coleridge 169 

Coleridge at Chamouny 169 

Coleridge 170 

Lines in a Flyleaf of "Christabel" 171 

Robert Southey 

Inscription 175 

On Southey 's Birthday, November 4 175 

To Southey 176 

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers 178 

To Robert Southey 179 

The Poetry of Southey, 180 

Lord Byron 

Sonnet to Byron 183 

Fragment: To Byron 183 

Byron 183 

Stanzas on the Death of Lord Byron 184 

Lord Byron and the Armenian Convent 185 

Memorial Verses 186 

Byron 186 

Byron's Grave 188 

To Lord Byron 190 

To Byron 194 

Percy Bysshe Shelley 

After a Lecture on Shelley 197 

Pauline 198 

Ode to Shelley 200 

Percy Bysshe Shelley 202 

The Poetry of Shelley 203 

Shelley 203 

Shelley 203 

To Shelley 204 

Shelley's Centenary 204 



John Keats 

Fragment on Keats 211 

Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats 211 

Sonnet 216 

Keats 216 

After a Lecture on Keats 217 

Aurora Leigh 218 

To the Spirit of Keats 219 

To the Memory of Keats 219 

John Keats 220 

The Poetry of Keats 220 

An Inscription in Rome 221 

Keats 221 

Keats 222 

Alfred Tennyson 

To Alfred Tennyson 225 

Wapentake 225 

Alfred Tennyson 226 

Tennyson 228 

To Lord Tennyson 228 

Tennyson 230 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson 231 

To Alfred Tennyson 232 

Tennyson 232 

In Memoriam — Alfred, Lord Tennyson 233 

Tennyson 235 

To Lord Tennyson 236 

Lachrymae Musarum 236 

Robert Browning 

Robert Browning 243 

Robert Browning 243 

Robert Browning 244 

A Sequence of Sonnets on the Death of Robert Brown- 
ing 244 

Robert Browning: Chief Poet of the Age 247 

The Burial of Robert Browning 248 

The Twelfth of December 250 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Geoffrey Chaucer Frontispiece 

TO FACE PAGE 

Edmund Spenser 24 

William Shakespeare 32 

Ben Jonson 52 

John Milton 58 

John Dryden 70 

Alexander Pope 78 

Oliver Goldsmith 88 

William Cowper 94 

Robert Burns 104 

Sir Walter Scott 130 

William Wordsworth 136 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 164 

Robert Southey 174 

Lord Byron 182 

Percy Bysshe Shelley 196 

John Keats 210 

Alfred Tennyson 224 

Robert Browning 242 



GEOFFREY CHAUCER 
1340(?)— 1400 



(From) 

OF POETS AND POESY 

That noble Chaucer, in those former times, 
The first inriched our English with his rhymes; 
And was the first of ours, that ever brake 
Into the Muses' treasure; and first spake 
In weighty Numbers : delving in the mine 
Of perfect knowledge, which he could refine 
And coin for current; and as much as then 
The English language could express to men, 
He made it do ! and, by his wondrous skill, 
Gave us much light from his abundant quill. 

— Michael Drayton 



(From) 



OF ENGLISH VERSE 

Chaucer, his sense can only boast; 
The glory of his numbers lost! 
Years have defaced his matchless strain; 
And yet he did not sing in vain! 

The beauties which adorned that age, 
The shining subjects of his rage, 
Hoping they should immortal prove 
Rewarded with success his love. 

This was the gen'rous poet's scope; 
And all an English pen can hope, 
To make the fair approve his flame, 
That can so far extend their fame! 

Verse, thus design'd, has no ill fate, 
If it arrive but at the date 
Of fading beauty; if it prove 
But as long-lived as present Love. 

—Edmund Waller 
15 



(From) 

AN ACCOUNT OF 
THE GREATEST ENGLISH POETS 

Long had our dull forefathers slept supine, 
Nor felt the raptures of the tuneful Nine; 
'Till Chaucer first, a merry bard, arose, 
And many a story told in rhyme and prose. 
But age has rusted what the poet writ, 
Worn out his language, and obscur'd his wit: 
In vain he jests in his unpolish'd strain, 
And tries to make his readers laugh in vain. 

— Joseph Addison 



(From) 
INSCRIPTION FOR A STATUE OF CHAUCER 
AT WOODSTOCK 

Such was old Chaucer; such the placid mien 

Of him who first with harmony inform'd 

The language of our fathers. Here he dwelt 

For many a cheerful day. These ancient walls 

Have often heard him, while his legends blithe 

He sang; of love, or knighthood, or the wiles 

Of homely life : through each estate and age, 

The fashions and the follies of the world 

With cunning hand portraying. Though perchance 

From Blenheim's towers, O stranger, thou art come 

Glowing with Churchill's trophies; yet in vain 

Dost thou applaud them if thy breast be cold 

To him, this other hero; who, in times 

Dark and untaught, began with charming verse 

To tame the rudeness of his native land. 

— Mark Akenside 



16 



(From) 

THE PROGRESS OF ENVY 

Not far from these,* Dan Chaucer, antient wight, 
A lofty seat on Mount Parnassus held, 
Who long had been the Muses' chief delight; 
His reverend locks were silver'd o'er with eld; 
Grave was his visage, and his habit plain; 
And while he sung, fair nature he display 'd 
In verse albeit uncouth, and simple strain; 
Ne mote he well be seen, so thick the shade 
Which elms and aged oaks had all around him made. 

— Robert Lloyd 
*Spenser and Milton. 

TO CHAUCER 

Chaucer, O how I wish thou wert 
Alive and, as of yore, alert! 
Then, after bandied tales, what fun 
Would we two have with monk and nun. 
Ah, surely verse was never meant 
To render mortals somnolent. 
In Spenser's labyrinthine rhymes 
I throw my arms o'erhead at times, 
Opening sonorous mouth as wide 
As oystershells at ebb of tide. 
Mistake me not: I honour him 
Whose magic made the Muses dream 
Of things they never knew before, 
And scenes they never wandered o'er. 
I dare not follow, nor again 
Be wafted with the wizard train. 
No bodyless and soulless elves 
I seek, but creatures like ourselves. 
If any poet now runs after 
The Faeries, they will split with laughter, 
Leaving him in the desert, where 
17 



Dry grass is emblematic fare. 

Thou wast content to act the squire 

Becomingly, and mount no higher, 

Nay, at fit season to descend 

Into the poet with a friend, 

Then ride with him about thy land 

In lithesome nutbrown boots well-tann'd, 

With lordly greyhound, who would dare 

Course against law the summer hare, 

Nor takes to heart the frequent crack 

Of whip, with curse that calls him back. 

The lesser Angels now have smiled 

To see thee frolic like a child, 

And hear thee, innocent as they, 

Provoke them to come down and play. 

— Walter Savage Landor 

CHAUCER AND WINDSOR 

Long shalt thou flourish, Windsor ! bodying forth 

Chivalric times, and long shall live around 

Thy Castle — the old oaks of British birth, 

Whose gnarled roots, tenacious and profound, 

As with a lion's talons grasp the ground. 

But should thy towers in ivied ruin rot, 

There's one, thine inmate once, whose strain renown'd 

Would interdict thy name to be forgot; 

For Chaucer loved thy bowers and trode this very spot. 

Chaucer! our Helicon's first fountain-stream, 

Our morning star of song — that led the way 

To welcome the long-after coming beam 

Of Spenser's light and Shakespeare's perfect day. 

Old England's fathers live in Chaucer's lay, 

As if they ne'er had died. He group'd and drew 

Their likeness with a spirit of life so gay, 

That still they live and breathe in Fancy's view. 

Fresh beings fraught with truth's imperishable hue. 

— Thomas Campbell 
18 



WRITTEN ON THE BLANK SPACE OF A LEAF AT 
THE END OF CHAUCER'S TALE OF "THE 
FLOWRE AND THE LEFE."* 

This pleasant tale is like a little copse: 
The honied lines so freshly interlace, 
To keep the reader in so sweet a place, 

So that he here and there full-hearted stops; 

And oftentimes he feels the dewy drops 
Come cool and suddenly against his face, 
And, by the wandering melody, may trace 

Which way the tender-legged linnet hops. 

Oh ! what a power has white simplicity ! 
What mighty power has this gentle story! 
I, that do ever feel athirst for glory, 

Could at this moment be content to lie 

Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings 
Were heard of none beside the mournful robins. 
1817 — John Keats 

CHAUCERf 

An old man in a lodge within a park; 
The chamber walls depicted all around 
With portraitures of huntsman, hawk, and hound, 
And the hurt deer. He listeneth to the lark, 

Whose song comes with the sunshine through the dark 
Of painted glass in leaden lattice bound; 
He listeneth and he laugheth at the sound, 
Then writeth in a book like any clerk . 

He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote 
The Canterbury Tales, and his old age 
Made beautiful with song; and as I read 

I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note 
Of lark and linnet, and from every page 
Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery mead. 

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

*Mr. Clark had fallen asleep over the book, and on waking, found it 
on his lap with this addition. 

fCopyright 1875 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; 1903 by Ernest W. 
Longfellow. By permission of Houghton Mifflin Co. 

19 



(From) 

A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN 

I read, before my eyelids dropt their shade, 
"The Legend of Good Women," long ago 

Sung by the morning star of song, who made 
His music heard below; 

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath 
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill 

The spacious times of great Elizabeth 
With sounds that echo still. 

And, for a while, the knowledge of his art 
Held me above the subject, as strong gales 

Hold swollen clouds from raining, tho' my heart, 
Brimful of those wild tales, 

Charged both mine eyes with tears. 

— Alfred Tennyson 



IN SPRING 

In Spring, when the breast of the lime-grove gathers 
Its roseate cloud; when the flushed streams sing, 
And the mavis tricks her in gayer feathers; 

Read Chaucer then; for Chaucer is spring! 
On lonely evenings in dull Novembers 

When rills run choked under skies of lead, 
And on forest-hearths the year's last embers 

Wind-heaped and glowing, lie, yellow and red, 
Read Chaucer still! In his ivied beaker 

With knights and wood-gods, and saints embossed 
Spring hides her head till the wintry breaker 

Thunders no more on the far-off coast. 

— Aubrey De Vere 

20 



THE POETRY OP CHAUCER 

Grey with all honours of age ! but fresh-featured and ruddy 
As dawn when the drowsy farm-yard has thrice heard 

Chaunticlere. 
Tender to tearfulness — childlike, and manly, and motherly; 
Here beats true English blood richest joyance on sweet 

English ground. 

— George Meredith 



(From) 

ON A COUNTRY ROAD 

Our father, lord long since of lordly rhyme . . . 
Each year that England clothes herself with May, 
She takes thy likeness on her. Time hath spun 
Fresh raiment all in vain and strange array 
For earth and man's new spirit, fain to shun 
Things past for dreams of better to be won, 
Through many a century since thy funeral chime 
Rang, and men deemed it death's most direful crime 
To have spared not thee for very love or shame; 
And yet, while mists round last year's memories climb, 
Our father Chaucer, here we praise thy name . . . 

. . . the soul sublime 
That sang for song's love more than lust of fame. 

— Charles Algernon Swinburne 



21 



EDMUND SPENSER 
1552?— 1599 




EDMUND SPENSER 



(From) 

OF POETS AND POESY 

Grave moral Spenser, 

Than whom, I am persuaded, there was none, 
Since the blind Bard, his Iliads up did make, 
Fitter a task like that, to undertake; 
To set down boldly ! bravely to invent ! 
In all high knowledge, surely, excellent! 

— Michael Drayton 



(From) 
AN ACCOUNT OF THE GREATEST ENGLISH 
POETS 

Old Spenser, next, warm'd with poetic rage, 
In ancient tales amus'd a barb'rous age; 
An age that yet uncultivate and rude, 
Where'er the poet's fancy led, pursu'd 
Through pathless fields, and unfrequented floods, 
To dens of dragons, and enchanted woods. 
But now the mystic tale, that pleas'd of yore, 
Can charm an understanding age no more; 
The long-spun allegories fulsome grow, 
While the dull moral lies too plain below. 
We view well-pleas'd at distance all the sights 
Of arms and palfries, battles, fields, and fights, 
And damsels in distress, and courteous knights. 
But when we look too near, the shades decay, 
And all the pleasing landscape fades away. 

— Joseph Addison 



25 



ODE TO THE KING 

Sage Spenser waked his lofty lay 

To grace Eliza's golden sway : 

O'er the proud theme new lustre to diffuse, 

He chose the gorgeous allegoric muse, 

And call'd to life old Uther's elfin tale, 

And rov'd thro' many a necromantic vale, 

Portraying chiefs that knew to tame 

The goblin's ire, the dragon's flame, 

To pierce the dark enchanted hall, 

Where virtue sate in lonely thrall. 

From fabling Fancy's inmost store 

A rich romantic robe he bore; 

A veil with visionary trappings hung, 

And o'er his virgin-queen the fairy texture flung. 

— Thomas Warton 

(From) 

THE PRELUDE 

That gentle Bard, 
Chosen by the Muses for their Page of State — 
Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven 
With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace, 
I called him Brother, Englishman, and Friend ! 

— William Wordsworth 



26 



(From) 

THE LAY OF THE LAUREATE 
17 

But then my Master dear arose to mind, 
He on whose song while yet I was a boy, 

My spirit fed, attracted to its kind, 
And still insatiate of the growing joy; 

He on whose tomb these eyes were wont to dwell, 
With inward yearnings which I may not tell; 

18 

He whose green bays shall bloom forever young, 
And whose dear name whenever I repeat, 

Reverence and love are trembling on my tongue; 
Sweet Spenser, sweetest Bard; yet not more sweet 

Than pure was he, and not more pure than wise, 
High Priest of all the Muses' mysteries. 

— Robert Southey 

SONNET 

Spenser! a jealous honourer of thine, 

A forester deep in thy midmost trees, 
Did, last eve, ask my promise to refine 

Some English, that might strive thine ear to please. 

But, Elfin-poet ! 'tis impossible 
For an inhabitant of wintry earth 

To rise, like Phoebus, with a golden quill, 
Fire-wing'd, and make a morning in his mirth. 

It is impossible to 'scape from toil 
O' the sudden, and receive thy spiriting: 

The flower must drink the nature of the soil 
Before it can put forth its blossoming: 

Be with me in the summer days, and I 

Will for thine honour and his pleasure try. 

— John Keats 

27 



SPENSER 

Sweet was the youth of virgin Poesy, 

That virgin sweetness which she gave to thee, 

My Spenser, bard of happy innocence ! 

For thou didst with a bridegroom's love intense 

Caress the fair inventions of thy brain, 

Those babes of paradise, without the pain 

Of mortal birth, to fairest heritage 

Born in the freshness of their perfect age. 

Thy Faery Knight had all the world in fee, 

For all the world was Faeryland to thee. 

Thine is no tale, once acted, then forgot; 

Thy creatures never were, and never will be not. 

Oh ! look not for them in the dark abyss 

Where all things have been, and where nothing is — 

The spectral past; — nor in the troubled sea 

Where all strange fancies are about to be — 

The unabiding present. Seek them where 

For ever lives the Good, the True, the Fair, 

In the eternal silence of the heart. 

There Spenser found them; thence his magic art 

Their shades evoked in feature, form, and limb, 

Real as a human self, and bright as cherubim. 

And what though wistful love and emulous arms, 

And all the wizard might of mutter'd charms, — 

Though slimy snakes disgorge their loathly rage, 

And monstrous phantoms wait on Archimage: 

These are but dreams, that come, and go, and peep 

Through the thin curtain of a morning sleep, 

And leave no pressure on the soul, that wakes 

And hails the glad creation that it makes. 

— Hartley Coleridge 



28 



THE POETRY OF SPENSER 

Lakes where the sunsheen is mystic with splendour and 

softness ; 
Vales where sweet life is all Summer with golden romance; 
Forests that glimmer with twilight round revel-bright 

palaces; 
Here in our May-blood we wander, careering 'mongst 

ladies and knights. 

— George Meredith 



29 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 
1564—1616 




WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 



(From) 

THE TEARES OF THE MUSES 

And he, the man whom Nature selfe had made 
To mock her selfe, and Truth to imitate, 
With kindly counter under Mimick shade, 
Our pleasant Willy, ah ! is dead of late : 
With whom all joy and jolly meriment 
Is also deaded, and in dolour drent. 

— Edmund Spenser 

(From) 

OF POETS AND POESY 

And be it said of thee, 

Shakespeare ! thou hadst as smooth a comic vein, 
Fitting the Sock ! and, in thy natural brain, 
As strong conception, and as clear a rage, 
As any one that trafficked with the Stage ! 

— Michael Drayton 

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED, THE 

AUTHOR, MASTER WILLIAM SHAE^SPEARE; 

AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US 

To draw no envy, Shakespeare ! on thy Name, 
Am I thus ample to thy Book and fame; 
While I confess thy Writings to be such 
As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much! 
'Tis true ! and all men's suffrage ! But these ways 
Were not the paths, I meant unto thy praise! 

For silliest Ignorance on these may light; 
Which, when it sounds at best, 's but Echo's right ! 
Or blind Affection, which doth ne'er advance 
The truth; but gropes, and urgeth all by chance! 
Or crafty Malice might pretend this praise; 
And think to ruin, where it seemed to raise! 
These are, as some infamous bawd, or whore, 
Should praise a Matron! What could hurt her more? 



But thou art proof against them: and, indeed, 
Above th' ill fortune of them; or the need! 

I therefore will begin. Soul of the Age ! 
The applause, delight, and wonder, of our Stage! 
My Shakespeare, rise ! I will not lodge thee by 
Chaucer, or Spenser; or bid Beaumont lie 
A little further, to make thee a room ! 
Thou art a Monument, without a tomb! 
And art alive still, while thy Book doth live; 
And we have wits to read, and praise to give. 

That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses; 
I mean, with great, but disproportioned, Muses : 
For, if I thought my judgment were of years, 
I should commit thee, surely, with thy peers! 
And tell, how far thou didst our Lyly outshine; 
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlow's mighty line. 

And though thou hadst small Latin, and less Greek; 
From thence, to honour thee, I would not seek 
For names: but call forth thund'ring Aeschylus, 
Euripides, and Sophocles to us ! 
Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead, 
To life again! to hear thy Buskin tread 
And shake a Stage! Or when thy Sock was on, 
Leave thee alone ! for the comparison 
Of all that insolent Greece, or haughty Rome, 
Sent forth; or since did, from their ashes come. 

Triumph, my Britain! Thou hast one to show, 
To whom all Scenes of Europe homage owe. 
He was not of an Age; but for all Time! 
And all the Muses still were in their prime, 
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm 
Our ears; or, like a Mercury, to charm. 

Nature herself was proud of his designs; 
And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines ! 

34 



Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit, 
As, since, she will vouchsafe no other Wit ! 
The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes, 
Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please! 
But antiquated and deserted lie, 
As they were not of Nature's family. 

Yet must I not give Nature all! Thy Art, 
My gentle Shakespeare! must enjoy a part! 
For though the Poet's matter, Nature be; 
His Art doth give the fashion! And that he 
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat 
(Such as thine are!), and strike the second heat 
Upon the Muses' anvil! turn the same, 
(And himself with it!) that he thinks to frame! 
Or for the laurel; he may gain a scorn! 

For a good Poet's made, as well as born; 
And such wert thou ! Look how the father's face 
Lives in his issue; even so, the race 
Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines 
In his well-turned and true-filled lines ! 
In each of which, he seems to Shake a Lance! 
As brandished at the eyes of Ignorance. 

Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were, 
To see thee in our waters yet appear; 
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames, 
That so did take Eliza, and our James! 

But, stay! I see thee in the hemisphere 
Advanced; and make a Constellation there! 
Shine forth, thou Star of Poets ! and with rage, 
Or influence, chide, or cheer, the drooping Stage! 
Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like 

night 
And despairs day, but for thy Volume's light. 

— Ben Jonson 

35 



ON SHAKESPEAR. 1630 

What needs my Shakespear for his honour'd Bones, 

The labour of an age in piled Stones, 

Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid 

Under a Star-ypointing Pyramid? 

Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame, 

What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name? 

Thou in our wonder and astonishment 

Hast built thy self a live-long Monument. 

For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art, 

Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart 

Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd Book, 

Those Delphick lines with deep impression took, 

Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving, 

Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving; 

And so Sepulcher'd in such pomp dost lie, 

That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die. 

— John Milton 

(From) 

PROLOGUE 

SPOKEN BY MR. GARRICK, 
AT THE OPENING OP THE THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE, 

1747 

When Learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes 
First reared the Stage, immortal Shakespeare rose! 
Each change of many-coloured life he drew; 
Exhausted Worlds, and then imagined new! 
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign; 
And panting Time toiled after him in vain! 
His powerful strokes presiding Truth imprest; 
And unresisted Passion stormed the breast ! 

— Samuel Johnson 



36 



(From) 

THE PROGRESS OP POESY 

III 

Far from the sun and summer gale, 
In thy green lap was Nature's Darling* laid, 

What time, where lucid Avon strayed, 
To him the mighty Mother did unveil 

Her awful face. The dauntless Child 

Stretched forth his little arms, and smiled. 
'This pencil take,' she said, 'whose colours clear 

Richly paint the vernal year: 
Thine too, these golden keys, immortal Boy! 

This can unlock the gates of Joy; 

Of Horrour that, and thrilling Fears, 
Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears!' 

— Thomas Gray 

WARWICKSHIRE! 

Ye Warwickshire Lads, and ye Lasses! 
See what at our Jubilee passes ! 
Come, revel away! Rejoice, and be glad! 
For the Lad of all lads, was a Warwickshire Lad ! 
Warwickshire Lad! 
All be glad, 
For the Lad of all lads, was a Warwickshire Lad! 

Be proud of the charms of your County; 
Where Nature has lavished her bounty ! 
Where much she has given, and some to be spared; 
For the Bard of all bards, was a Warwickshire Bard! 
Warwickshire Bard ! 
Never paired ! 
For the Bard of all bards, was a Warwickshire Bard! 

*Shakespeare. 

fSongs in connection with the Shakespeare Jubilee at Stratford-upon- 
Avon, September 7, 1769. 

37 



Each Shire has its different pleasures, 
Each Shire has its different treasures : 
But to rare Warwickshire all must submit; 
For the Wit of all wits, was a Warwickshire Wit ! 
Warwickshire Wit! 
How he writ ! 
For the Wit of all wits, was a Warwickshire Wit! 

Old Ben, Thomas Otway, John Dry den; 
And half a score more, we take pride in ! 
Of famous Will Congreve we boast too the skill; 
But the Will of all Wills, was a Warwickshire Will! 
Warwickshire Will! 
Matchless still! 
For the Will of Wills, was a Warwickshire Will ! 

Our Shakespeare compared is to no man; 
Nor Frenchman, nor Grecian, nor Roman! 
Their swans are all geese, to the Avon's sweet Swan; 
And the Man of all men, was a Warwickshire Man ! 
Warwickshire Man! 
Avon's Swan! 
And the Man of all men, was a Warwickshire Man ! 

As ven'son is very inviting, 
To steal it our Bard took delight in! 
To make his friends merry, he never was lag : 
And the Wag of all wags, was a Warwickshire Wag! 
Warwickshire Wag! 
Ever brag ! 
For the Wag of all wags, was a Warwickshire Wag! 

There never was seen such a creature! 
Of all she was worth, he robbed Nature! 
He took all her smiles, and he took all her grief; 
And the Thief of all thieves, was a Warwickshire Thief! 
Warwickshire Thief! 
He's the chief! 
For the Thief of all thieves, was a Warwickshire Thief! 

— David Garrick 



(From) 

INSCRIPTIONS 

IV 

O youths and virgins: O declining eld: 
O pale misfortune's slaves: O ye who dwell 
Unknown with humble quiet; ye who wait 
In courts, or fill the golden seat of kings : 
O sons of sport and pleasure : O thou wretch 
That weep'st for jealous love, or the sore wounds 
Of conscious guilt, or death's rapacious hand 
Which left thee void of hope : O ye who roam 
In exile; ye who through the embattled field 
Seek bright renown; or who for nobler palms 
Contend, the leaders of a public cause; 
Approach : behold this marble. Know ye not 
The features? Hath not oft his faithful tongue 
Told you the fashion of your own estate, 
The secrets of your bosom? Here then, round 
His monument with reverence while ye stand, 
Say to each other: — 'This was Shakespeare's form; 
Who walk'd in every path of human life, 
Felt every passion; and to all mankind 
Doth now, will ever, that experience yield 
Which his own genius only could acquire.' 

— Mark Akenside 



SHAKESPEARE 

O sovereign Master! who with lonely state 
Dost rule as in some isle's enchanted land, 

On whom soft airs and shadowy spirits wait, 

Whilst scenes of "faerie" bloom at thy command, 

On thy wild shores forgetful could I lie, 

And list, till earth dissolved to thy sweet minstrelsy! 

39 



Called by thy magic from the hoary deep, 
Aerial forms should in bright troops ascend, 

And then a wondrous masque before me sweep; 

Whilst sounds, that the earth owned not, seem to blend 

Their stealing melodies, that when the strain 

Ceased, J should weep, and would so dream again! 

The song hath ceased. Ah! who, pale shade, art thou, 
Sad raving to the rude tempestuous night! 

Sure thou hast had much wrong, so stern thy brow, 
So piteous thou dost tear thy tresses white; 

So wildly thou dost cry, Blow, bitter wind! 

Ye elements, I call not you unkind!* 

Beneath the shade of nodding branches grey, 
'Mid rude romantic woods, and glens forlorn, 

The merry hunters wear the hours away; 
Rings the deep forest to the joyous horn! 

Joyous to all, but him,f who with sad look 

Hangs idly musing by the brawling brook. 

But mark the merry elves of fairy land! J 

To the high moon's gleamy glance, 
They with shadowy morris dance; 

Soft music dies along the desert sand; 
Soon at peep of cold-eyed day, 

Soon the numerous lights decay; 
Merrily, now merrily, 
After the dewy moon they fly. 

The charm is wrought : I see an aged form, 
In white robes, on the winding sea-shore stand; 
O'er the careering surge he waves his wand : 

Hark! on the bleak rock bursts the swelling storm: 

*Lear. fJ a( l ues: As You Like It. JMidsummer Nights Dream. 

40 



Now from bright opening clouds I hear a lay, 
Come to these yellow sands, fair stranger,* come away! 

Saw ye pass by the weird sisters palelf 

Marked ye the lowering castle on the heath ! 

Hark, hark, is the deed done — the deed of death ! 
The deed is done : — Hail, king of Scotland, hail ! 

I see no more; — to many a fearful sound 

The bloody cauldron sinks, and all is dark around. 

Pity ! touch the trembling strings, 

A maid, a beauteous maniac, wildly sings : 

They laid him in the ground so cold, J 
Upon his breast the earth is thrown; 

High is heaped the grassy mould, 
Oh! he is dead and gone. 

The winds of the winter blow o'er his cold breast, 

But pleasant shall be his rest. 

O sovereign Master! at whose sole command 
We start with terror, or with pity weep; 

Oh! where is now thy all-creating wand; 

Buried ten thousand thousand fathoms deep ! 

The staff is broke, the powerful spell is fled, 

And never earthly guest shall in thy circle tread. 
— William Lisle Bowles 



TO SHAKESPEARE 

The soul of man is larger than the sky, 
Deeper than ocean — or the abysmal dark 
Of the unfathom'd centre. Like that Ark, 
Which in its sacred hold uplifted high, 
O'er the drown'd hills, the human family, 

*Ferdinand: see The Tempest. f Macbeth. JOphelia: Hamlet, 

41 



And stock reserved of every living kind, 

So, in the compass of the single mind, 

The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie, 

That make all worlds. Great Poet, 'twas thy art 

To know thyself, and in thyself to be 

Whate'er love, hate, ambition, destiny, 

Or the firm, fatal purpose of the heart, 

Can make of Man. Yet thou wert still the same, 

Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own flame. 

— Hartley Coleridge 

SHAKESPEARE* 

A vision as of crowded city streets, 
With human life in endless overflow; 
Thunder of thoroughfares; trumpets that blow 
To battle; clamor, in obscure retreats, 

Of sailors landed from their anchored fleets; 
Tolling of bells in turrets, and below 
Voices of children, and bright flowers that throw 
O'er garden- walls their intermingled sweets ! 

This vision comes to me when I unfold 
The volume of the Poet paramount, 
Whom all the Muses loved, not one alone; — 

Into his hands they put the lyre of gold, 

And, crowned with sacred laurel at their fount, 
Placed him as Musagetes on their throne. 

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

THE NAMESf 
Shakespeare! — To such name's sounding, what succeeds 
Fitly as silence? Falter forth the spell, — 
Act follows word, the speaker knows full well, 
Nor tampers with its magic more than needs. 
Two names there are: That which the Hebrew reads 
With his soul only: if from lips it fell, 
Echo, back thundered by earth, heaven and hell, 
♦Copyright 1875 by Henry Wadsworth'JLongfellow, 1903>y Ernest 
W. Longfellow. By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. 
tCopyrighted by Houghton Mifflin Co. Published by permission. 

42 



Would own "Thou didst create us!" Naught impedes 
We voice the other name, man's most of might, 
Awesomely, lovingly : let awe and love 
Mutely await their working, leave to sight 
All of the issue as — below — above — 
Shakespeare's creation rises : one remove, 
Through dread — this finite from that infinite. 

— Robert Browning 

SHAKESPEARE 

Others abide our question. Thou art free. 
We ask and ask — Thou smilest and art still, 
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill, 
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty, 

Planting his stedfast footsteps in the sea, 
Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, 
Spares but the cloudy border of his base 
To the foil'd searching of mortality; 

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, 
Self-schooPd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self -secure, 
Didst tread on earth unguess'd at. — Better so ! 

All pains the immortal spirit must endure, 

All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow, 

Find their sole speech in that victorious brow. 

— Matthew Arnold 

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 

(APRIL 23, 1564) 

She sat in her eternal house, 

The sovereign mother of mankind; 

Before her was the peopled world, 
The hollow night behind. 
43 



"Below my feet the thunders break, 
Above my head the stars rejoice; 

But man, although he babbles much, 
Has never found a voice. 

Ten thousand years have come and gone, 

And not an hour of any day 
But he has dumbly looked to me 

The things he could not say. 

It shall be so no more, " she said. 

And then, revolving in her mind. 
She thought: "I will create a child 

Shall speak for all his kind. " 

It was the spring-time of the year, 
And lo, where Avon's waters flow, 

The child, her darling, came on earth 
Three hundred years ago. 

There was no portent in the sky, 
No cry, like Pan's, along the seas, 

Nor hovered round his baby mouth 
The swarm of classic bees. 

What other children were he was, 
If more, 't was not to mortal ken; 

The being likest to mankind 
Made him the man of men. 

They gossiped, after he was dead, 

An idle tale of stealing deer; 
One thinks he was a lawyer's clerk; 

But nothing now is clear, 

Save that he married, in his youth, 
A maid, his elder; went to town; 
44 



Wrote plays, made money; and at last 
Came back, and settled down, 

A prosperous man, among his kin, 
In Stratford, where his bones repose. 

And this — what can be less? is all 
The world of Shakespeare knows. 

It irks us that we know no more, 

For where we love we would know all; 

What would be small in common men 
In great is never small. 

Their daily habits, how they looked, 

The color of their eyes and hair, 
Their prayers, their oaths, the wine they drank, 

The clothes they used to wear, 

Trifles like these declare the men, 

And should survive them — nay, they must; 
We'll find them somewhere; if it needs, 

We'll rake among their dust ! 

Not Shakespeare's ! He hath left his curse 

On him disturbs it: let it rest, 
The mightiest that ever Death 

Laid in the earth's dark breast. 

Not to himself did he belong, 

Nor does his life belong to us; 
Enough he was; give up the search 

If he were thus, or thus. 

Before he came his like was not, 

Nor left he heirs to share his powers; 

The mighty Mother sent him here, 
To be her voice and ours. 
45 



To be her oracle to man; 

To be what man may be to her; 
Between the Maker and the made 

The best interpreter. 

The hearts of all men beat in his, 

Alike in pleasure and in pain; 
And he contained their myriad minds, 

Mankind in heart and brain. 

Shakespeare! What shapes are conjured up 
By that one word ! They come and go, 

More real, shadows though they be, 
Than many a man we know. 

Hamlet, the Dane, unhappy Prince 
Who most enjoys when suffering most: 

His soul is haunted by itself — 
There needs no other Ghost. 

The Thane, whose murderous fancy sees 

The dagger painted in the air; 
The guilty King, who stands appalled 

When Banquo fills his chair. 

Lear in the tempest, old and crazed, 

"Blow winds. Spit fire, singe my white head!" 
Or, sadder, watching for the breath 

Of dear Cordelia— dead! 

The much-abused, relentless Jew, 

Grave Prospero, in his magic isle, 
And she who captived Anthony, 

The serpent of old Nile. 

Imperial forms, heroic souls, 

Greek, Roman, masters of the world, 
46 



Kings, queens, the soldier, scholar, priest, 
The courtier, sleek and curled; 

He knew and drew all ranks of men, 

And did such life to them impart 
They grow not old, immortal types, 

The lords of Life and Art! 

Their sovereign he, as she was his, 

The awful Mother of the Race, 
Who, hid from all her children's eyes, 

Unveiled to him her face; 

Spake to him till her speech was known, 
Through him till man had learned it; then 

Enthroned him in her Heavenly House, 
The most Supreme of Men! 

— Richard Henry Stoddard 



THE SPIRIT OF SHAKESPEARE 

I 

Thy greatest knew thee, Mother Earth; unsour'd 
He knew thy sons. He prob'd from hell to hell 
Of human passions, but of love deflower'd 
His wisdom was not, for he knew thee well. 
Thence came the honey'd corner at his lips, 
The conquering smile wherein his spirit sails 
Calm as the God who the white sea-wave whips, 
Yet full of speech and intershifting tales, 
Close mirrors of us : thence had he the laugh 
We feel is thine; broad as ten thousand beeves 
At pasture! thence thy songs that winnow chaff 
From grain, bid sick Philosophy's last leaves 
Whirl, if they have no response — they enforced 
To fatten Earth when from her soul divorced. 
47 



II 

How smiles he at a generation rank'd 

In gloomy noddings over life! They pass. 

Not he to feed upon a breast unthank'd, 

Or eye a beauteous face in a crack'd glass. 

But he can spy that little twist of brain 

Which mov'd some weighty leader of the blind, 

Unwitting 'twas the goad of personal pain, 

To view in curs'd eclipse our Mother's mind, 

And show us of some rigid harridan 

The wretched bondmen till the end of time. 

O liv'd the Master now to paint us Man, 

That little twist of brain would ring a chime 

Of whence it came and what it caus'd, to start 

Thunders of laughter, clearing air and heart. 

— George Meredith 

THE POETRY OF SHAKESPEARE 

Picture some Isle smiling green 'mid the white-foaming 

ocean; — 
Full of old woods, leafy wisdoms, and frolicsome fays; 
Passions and pageants; sweet love singing bird-like above 

.it; 
Life in all shapes, aims, and fates, is there warm'd by one 

great human heart. 

— George Meredith 

STRATFORD-ON-AVON 

Be glad in heaven above all souls insphered, 
Most royal and most loyal born of men, 
Shakespeare, of all on earth beloved or feared 
Or worshipped, highest in sight of human ken. 
The homestead hallowed by thy sovereign birth, 
Whose name, being one with thine, stands higher than 
Rome, 

48 



Forgets not how of all on English earth 
Their trust is holiest, there who have their home. 
Stratford is thine and England's. None that hate 
The commonweal whose empire sets men free 
Find comfort there, where once by grace of fate 
A soul was born as boundless as the sea. 
If life, if love, if memory now be thine, 
Rejoice that still thy Stratford bears thy sign. 

— Algernon Charles Swinburne 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 

Not if men's tongues and angels' all in one 

Spake, might the word be said that might speak Thee. 

Streams, winds, woods, flowers, fields, mountains, yea, 
the sea, 
What power is in them all to praise the sun? 
His praise is this, — he can be praised of none. 

Man, woman, child, praise God for him; but he 

Exults not to be worshipped, but to be. 
He is; and, being, beholds his work well done. 
All joy, all glory, all sorrow, all strength, all mirth, 
Are his : without him, day were night on earth. 

Time knows not his from time's own period. 
All lutes, all harps, all viols, all flutes, all lyres, 
Fall dumb before him ere one string suspires. 

All stars are angels; but the sun is God. 

— Algernon Charles Swinburne 



49 



BEN JONSON 

1573P-1637 




BEN JONSON 



(From) 

OF POETS AND POESY 

Next these, learn'd Jonson, in this list I bring: 
Who had drunk deep of the Pierian spring, 
Whose knowledge did him worthily prefer; 
And long was Lord here of the Theatre. 
Who, in opinion, made our learn'st to stick, 
Whether in Poems rightly Dramatic, 
Strong Seneca, or Plautus, he, or they, 
Should bear the Buskin, or the Sock, away? 

— Michael Drayton 

PRAYER TO BEN JONSON 

When I a Verse shall make, 

Know, I have praid thee, 
For old Religion's sake, 

Saint Ben, to aide me ! 

Make the way smooth for me 

When I, thy Herrick, 
Honouring thee, on my knee 

Offer my Lyrick 

Candles He give to thee, 

And a new Altar; 
And thou, Saint Ben, shalt be 

Writ in my Psalter! 

— Robert Herrick 

AN ODE FOR BEN JONSON 

Ah Ben! 
Say how, or when 
Shall we thy Guests, 
Meet at those Lyric Feasts, 
Made at the Sun, 
The Dog, the Triple Tunne? 
53 



Where we such clusters had, 
As made us nobly wild, not mad; 

And yet each Verse of thine 
Out-did the meate, out-did the frolick wine. 

My Ben! 
Or come agen: 
Or send to us, 
Thy wit's great over-plus; 
But teach us yet 
Wisely to husband it; 
Lest we that Tallent spend: 
And having once brought to an end 
That precious stock; the store 
Of such a wit; the world sho'd have no more. 

— Robert Herrick 

UPON BEN JONSON 

Mirror of poets ! mirror of our age ! 
Which her whole face beholding on thy stage, 
Pleased and displeased with her own faults, endures 
A remedy like those whom music cures. 
Thou hast alone those various inclinations 
Which Nature gives to ages, sexes, nations; 
So traced with thy all-resembling pen, 
That whate'er custom has imposed on men, 
Or ill-got habit (which deforms them so, 
That scarce a brother can his brother know) 
Is represented to the wondering eyes 
Of all that see, or read, thy comedies. 
Whoever in those glasses looks, may find 
The spots returned, or graces, of his mind; 
And by the help of so divine an art, 
At leisure view, and dress, his nobler part. 
Narcissus, cozened by that flattering well, 
Which nothing could but of his beauty tell, 
Had here, discovering the deformed estate 
54 



Of his fond mind, preserved himself with hate. 

But virtue too, as well as vice, is clad 

In flesh and blood so well, that Plato had 

Beheld, what his high fancy once embraced, 

Virtue with colours, speech, and motion graced. 

The sundry postures of thy copious Muse 

Who would express, a thousand tongues must use; 

Whose fate's no less peculiar than thy art; 

For as thou couldst all characters impart, 

So none could render thine, which still escapes, 

Like Proteus, in variety of shapes; 

Who was nor this nor that; but all we find, 

And all we can imagine, in mankind. 

— Edmund Walleb 

(From) 

PROLOGUE 

SPOKEN BY MR. GARRICK, 
AT THE OPENING OF THE THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE, 

1747 

Then Jonson came,* instructed from the School, 
To please in method, and invent by rule. 
His studious patience and laborious art 
By regular approach assayed the heart ! 
Cold Approbation gave the ling'ring Bays; 
For those who durst not censure, scarce could praise ! 
A mortal born, he met the general doom; 
But left, like Egypt's Kings, a lasting tomb. 

— Samuel Johnson 

*After Shakespeare. 



55 



THE ROSCIAD 

The book of man he read with nicest art, 

And ransack'd all the secrets of the heart; 

Exerted penetration's utmost force, 

And traced each passion to its proper source; 

Then, strongly mark'd, in liveliest colours drew 

And brought each foible forth to public view : 

The coxcomb felt a lash in every word, 

And fools, hung out, their brother fools deterr'd. 

His comic humour kept the world in awe, 

And laughter frighten'd Folly more than Law. 

— Charles Churchill 



BEN JONSON 

Broad-based, broad-fronted, bounteous, multiform, 
With many a valley impleached with ivy and vine, 
Wherein the springs of all the streams run wine, 

And many a crag full-faced against the storm, 

The mountain where thy Muse's feet made warm 
Those lawns that revelled with her dance divine 
Shines yet with fire as it was wont to shine 

From tossing torches round the dance aswarm. 

Nor less, high-stationed on the grey grave heights, 
High-thoughted seers with heaven's heart-kindling lights 

Hold converse : and the herd of meaner things 
Knows or by fiery scourge or fiery shaft 
When wrath on thy broad brows has risen, and laughed 

Darkening thy soul with shadow of thunderous wings. 
— Algernon Charles Swinburne 



56 



JOHN MILTON 

1608-1674 




JOHN MILTON 



UNDER THE PORTRAIT OF JOHN MILTON 

Three poets, in three distant ages born. 
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. 
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed, 
The next in majesty, in both the last: 
The force of Nature could no farther go; 
To make a third, she join'd the former two. 

— John Dryden 

ON MASTER MILTON'S 'PARADISE LOST' 

When I beheld the Poet blind, yet bold, 
In slender book his vast design unfold, 
Messiah crowned, GOD'S reconciled decree, 
Rebelling Angels, the Forbidden Tree, 
Heaven, Hell, Earth, Chaos, All! the Argument 
Held me a while : misdoubting his intent. 
That he would min (for I saw him strong !) 
The Sacred Truths, to Fable and old Song. 
So Samson groped the Temple's posts in spite; 
The World o'erwhelming, to revenge his sight. 

Yet, as I read, soon growing less severe, 
I liked hi£ Project; the success did fear! 
Through that wide field, how he his way should find, 
O'er which lame Faith leads Understanding blind: 
Lest he'd perplex the things he would explain; 
And what was easy, he should render vain. 

Or, if, a Work so infinite he spanned; 
Jealous I was, that some less skilful hand 
(Such as disquiet always what is well: 
And by ill imitating, would excel !) 
Might hence presume, the whole Creation's Day, 
To change in Scenes; and show it in a Play! 

Pardon me, mighty Poet ! nor despise 
My causeless, yet not impious, surmise! 
But I am now convinced ! and none will dare 
59 



Within thy labours to pretend a share ! 

Thou hast not missed one thought that could be fit; 

And all that was improper dost omit : 

So that no room is here for Writers left, 

But to detect their ignorance, or theft. 

That majesty which through thy Work doth reign, 
Draws the devout; deterring the profane! 
And things divine thou treat's (t) of in such State 
As them preserves, and thee, inviolate ! 

At once Delight and Horror on us seize, 
Thou sing'st with so much gravity and ease; 
And, above human flight, doth soar aloft 
With plume so strong, so equal, and so soft ! 
The Bird named from that Paradise you sing, 
So never flags; but always keeps on wing. 

Where couldst thou Words of such a compass find; 
Whence furnish such a vast expanse of mind ! 
Just Heaven, thee, like Tiresias, to requite, 
Rewards with Prophecy thy loss of sight ! 

Well might thou scorn, thy Readers to allure 
With tinkling rhyme ! of thy own sense secure : 
While the Town-Bays writes all the while, and spells; 
And, like a pack-horse, tires without his bells. 
Their fancies like our bushy points appear: 
The Poets tag them; we, for fashion, wear. 
I too, transported by the mode, offend; 
And while I meant to praise thee, must commend. 

Thy Verse created, like thy Theme, sublime, 
In number, weight, and measure, needs not rhyme. 

— Andrew Marvell 



60 



(From) 

AN ACCOUNT OF 
THE GREATEST ENGLISH POETS 

But Milton, next, with high and haughty stalks, 
Unfetter'd in majestick numbers walks; 
No vulgar hero can his muse ingage; 
Nor earth's wide scene confine his hallow'd rage. 
See! see, he upward springs, and tow'ring high 
Spurns the dull province of mortality, 
Shakes heaven's eternal throne with dire alarms, 
And sets the Almighty thunderer in arms. 
What-e'er his pen describes I more than see, 
Whilst ev'ry verse arrayed in majesty, 
Bold, and sublime, my whole attention draws, 
And seems above the critick's nicer laws. 
How are you struck with terror and delight, 
When angel with arch-angel copes in fight! 
When great Messiah's out-spread banner shines, 
How does the chariot rattle in his lines ! 
What sounds of brazen wheels, what thunder, scare, 
And stun the reader with the din of war! 
With fear my spirits &nd my blood retire, 
To see the seraphs sulik in clouds of fire; 
But when, with eager steps, from hence I rise, 
And view the first gay scenes of Paradise; 
What tongue, what words of rapture can express 
A vision so profuse of pleasantness. 
Oh had the poet ne'er profan'd his pen, 
To varnish o'er the guilt of faithless men; 
His other works might have deserv'd applause! 
But now the language can't support the cause; 
While the clean current, tho' serene and bright, 
Betrays a bottom odious to the sight. 

— Joseph Addison 



61 



(From) 



(From) 



THE SEASONS— SUMMER 

Is not eaeh great, each amiable Muse 

Of classic ages in thy Milton met? 

A genius universal as his theme; 

Astonishing as Chaos, as the bloom 

Of blowing Eden fair, as Heaven sublime! 

— James Thomson 



THE PROGRESS OF POESY 



III 

Nor second* He,f that rode sublime 
Upon the Seraph- wings of ecstasy, 

The secrets of th' Abyss to spy ! 
He passed the flaming bounds of Place and Time ! 

The living Throne, the sapphire blaze, 

Where Angels tremble while they gaze, 
He saw: but, blasted with excess of light, 

Closed his eyes in endless night! 
Behold! where Dryden's less presumptuous car 

Wide o'er the Fields of Glory bear 

Two coursers of ethereal race, 
With necks in thunder clothed and long-resounding pace. 

— Thomas Gray 

*To Shakespeare. fMilton. 



62 



MILTON 

ON THE BUSTS OF MILTON, IN YOUTH AND AGE, AT 
STOURHEAD 

IN YOUTH 

Milton, our noblest poet, in the grace 

Of youth, in those fair eyes and clustering hair, 
That brow untouched by one faint line of care, 
To mar its openness, we seem to trace 
The front of the first lord of human race, 
'Mid thine own Paradise portrayed so fair, 
Ere Sin or Sorrow scathed it : such the air 
That characters thy youth. Shall time efface 

These lineaments as crowding cares assail ! 
It is the lot of falPn humanity. 

What boots it ! armed in adamantine mail, 
The unconquerable mind, and genius high, 
Right onward hold their way through weal and woe, 
Or whether life's brief lot be high or low! 

— William Lisle Bowles 

MILTON 

IN AGE 

And art thou he, now "fall'n on evil days," 

And changed indeed! Yet what do this sunk cheek, 
These thinner locks, and that calm forehead speak! 

A spirit reckless of man's blame or praise, — 

A spirit, when thine eyes to the noon's blaze 
Their dark orbs roll in vain, in suffering meek, 
As in the sight of God intent to seek, 

'Mid solitude or age, or through the ways 
Of hard adversity, the approving look 

Of its great Master; whilst the conscious pride 
Of wisdom, patient and content to brook 



All ills to that sole Master's task applied, 

Shall show before high heaven the unaltered mind, 

Milton, though thou art poor, and old, and blind ! 

— William Lisle Bowles 

SONNET 

Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour: 

England hath need of thee : she is a fen 

Of stagnant waters : altar, sword, and pen, 

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, 

Have forfeited their ancient English dower 

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men: 

Oh! raise us up, return to us again; 

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart; 

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: 

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 

So didst thou travel on life's common way, 

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart 

The lowliest duties on herself did lay. 

— William Wordsworth 

FRAGMENT: MILTON'S SPIRIT 

I dreamed that Milton's spirit rose, and took 

From life's green tree his Uranian lute; 
And from his touch sweet thunder flowed, and shook 
All human things built in contempt of man, — 
And sanguine thrones and impious altars quaked, 
Prisons and citadels .... 

— Percy Bysshe Shelley 



ON A LOCK OF MILTON'S HAIR 

"I was at Hunt's the other day, and he surprised me with 
a real authenticated lock of Milton s hair. I know you would 
like what I wrote thereon, so here it is — as they say of a Sheep 
in a Nursery Book. Jan. 1818. 

Chief of organic numbers ! 
Old Scholar of the Spheres ! 
Thy spirit never slumbers, 
But rolls about our ears 
For ever and for ever ! 
O what a mad endeavour 

Worketh He, 
Who to thy sacred and ennobled hearse 
Would offer a burnt sacrifice of verse 

And melody. 

How heavenward thou soundest ! 
Live Temple of sweet noise, 
And Discord unconfoundest, 
Giving Delight new joys, 
And Pleasure nobler pinions : 
O where are thy dominions? 

Lend thine ear 
To a young Delian oath — ay, by thy soul, 
By all that from thy mortal lips did roll, 
And by the kernel of thy earthly love, 
Beauty in things on earth and things above, 

I swear! 

When every childish fashion 
Has vanished from my rhyme, 
Will I, grey gone in passion, 
Leave to an after-time 
Hymning and Harmony 
Of thee and of thy works, and of thy life; 
65 



But vain is now the burning and the strife; 
Pangs are in vain, until I grow high-rife 

With old Philosophy, 
And mad with glimpses of futurity. 

For many years my offerings must be hush'd; 
When I do speak, I '11 think upon this hour, 
Because I feel my forehead hot and flushed, 
Even at the simplest vassal of thy power, 

A lock of thy bright hair, — 

Sudden it came, 
And I was startled when I caught thy name 

Coupled so unaware; 
Yet at the moment temperate was my blood — 
I thought I had beheld it from the flood ! 

— John Keats 

MILTON* 

I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold 
How the voluminous billows roll and run, 
Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun 
Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled, 

And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold 
All its loose-flowing garments into one, 
Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun 
Pale reach of sands, and changes them to gold. 

So in majestic cadence rise and fall 
The mighty undulations of thy song, 
O sightless bard, England's Maeonides ! 

And ever and anon, high over all 

Uplifted, a ninth wave superb and strong, 
Floods all the soul with its melodious seas. 

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

♦Copyright 1875 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; 1903 by Er- 
nest W. Longfellow. By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. 



66 



MILTON 

O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies, 
O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity, 

God-gifted organ- voice of England, 
Milton, a name to resound for ages; 
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, 
Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armories, 

Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean 
Rings to the roar of an angel onset — 

Me rather all that bowery loneliness, 
The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring, 

And bloom profuse and cedar arches 

Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, 
Where some refulgent sunset of India 
Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, 
And crimson-hued the stately palm- woods 

Whisper in odorous heights of even. 

— Alfred Lord Tennyson 

THE POETRY OF MILTON 

Like to some deep-chested organ whose grand inspiration, 
Serenely majestic in utterance, lofty and calm, 
Interprets to mortals with melody great as its burthen, 
The mystical harmonies chiming for ever throughout the 
bright spheres. 

— George Meredith 

MILTON 

His feet were shod with music, and had wings 

Like Hermes; far upon the peaks of song 

His footfalls sounded silverly along; 

The dull world blossomed into beauteous things 
Where'er he trod; and Heliconian springs 

Gushed from the rocks he touched; round him a throng 

Of fair invisibles, seraphic, strong, 

67 



Struck Orphean murmers out of golden strings; 
But he, spreading keen pinions for a white 

Immensity of radiance and of peace, 

Uplooming to the empyreal infinite, 
Far through ethereal fields and zenith seas, 

High, with strong wing-beats and with eagle ease, 

Soared in a solitude of glorious light! 

— Lloyd Mifflin 

TO MILTON— BLIND* 

He who said suddenly, "Let there be light!" 

To thee the dark deliberately gave; 

That those full eyes might undistracted be 

By this beguiling show of sky and field, 

This brilliance, that so lures us from the Truth. 

He gave thee back original night, His own 

Tremendous canvas, large and blank and free, 

Where at each thought a star flashed out and sang. 

O blinded with a special lighting, thou 

Hadst once again the virgin Dark! and when 

The pleasant flowery sight, which had deterred 

Thine eyes from seeing, when this recent world 

Was quite withdrawn; then burst upon thy view 

The elder glory; space again in pangs, 

And Eden odorous in the early mist, 

That heaving watery plain that was the world, 

Then the burned earth, and Christ coming in clouds. 

Or rather a special leave to thee was given 

By the high power, and thou with bandaged eyes 

Wast guided through the glimmering camp of God. 

Thy hand was taken by angels who patrol 

The evening, or are sentries to the dawn, 

Or pace the wide air everlastingly. 

Thou wast admitted to the presence, and deep 

Argument heardest, and the large design 

That brings this world out of the woe to bliss. 

— Stephen Phillips 

*Copyright 1897 by John Lane, copyright 1905 by John Lane Company. 

68 



JOHN DRYDEN 
1631-1700 




JOHN DRYDEX 



A SATIRE AGAINST WIT 

'Tis true, that when the coarse and worthless dross 
Is purg'd away, there will be mighty loss; 
Ev'n Congreve, Southern, manly Wycherley, 
When thus refin'd, will grievous sufferers be; 
Into the melting pot when Dryden comes, 
What horrid stench will rise, what noisome fumes ! 
How will he shrink, when all his lewd allay, 
And wicked mixture, sh'll be purg'd away ! 

— Sir Richard Blackmore 

{From) 

AN ACCOUNT OF 
THE GREATEST ENGLISH POETS 

But see where artful Dryden next appears 
Grown old in rhyme, but charming ev'n in years. 
Great Dryden next, whose tuneful muse affords 
The sweetest numbers, and the fittest words. 
Whether in comick sounds or tragick airs 
She forms her voice, she moves our smiles or tears. 
If satire or heroic strain she writes, 
Her hero pleases, and her satire bites. 
From her no harsh unartful numbers fall, 
She wears all dresses, and she charms in all. 
How might we fear our English poetry, 
That long has flourish'd, shou'd decay with thee; 
Did not the muses other hope appear, 
Harmonious Congreve, and forbid our fear : 
Congreve ! whose fancy's unexhausted store 
Has given already much, and promis'd more. 
Congreve shall still preserve thy fame alive, 
And Dryden's muse shall in his friend survive. 

— Joseph Addison 



71 



TO MR. DRYDEN 

How long, great poet, shall thy sacred lays 

Provoke our wonder, and transcend our praise? 

Can neither injuries of time, or age, 

Damp thy poetick heat, and quench thy rage? 

Not so thy Ovid in his exile wrote, 

Grief chill'd his breast, and check'd his rising thought; 

Pensive and sad, his drooping muse betrays 

The Roman genius in its last decays. 

Prevailing warmth has still thy mind possest, 
And second youth is kindled in thy breast; 
Thou mak'st the beauties of the Romans known, 
And England boasts of riches not her own; 
Thy lines have heighten'd Virgil's majesty, 
And Horace wonders at himself in thee. 
Thou teachest Persius to inform our isle 
In smoother numbers, and a clearer stile; 
And Juvenal, instructed in thy page, 
Edges his satyr, and improves his rage. 
Thy copy casts a fairer light on all, 
And still outshines the bright original. 

Now Ovid boasts the advantage of thy song, 
And tells his story in the British tongue; 
Thy charming verse, and fair translations, show 
How thy own laurel first began to grow; 
How wild Lycaon chang'd by angry gods, 
And frighted at himself, ran howling through the woods. 

O mayst thou still the noble task prolong, 
Nor age, nor sickness interrupt thy song: 
Then may we wondering read, how human limbs 
Have water'd kingdoms, and dissolv'd in streams; 
Of those rich fruits that on the fertile mould 
Turn'd yellow by degrees, and ripen'd into gold: 
How some in feathers, or a ragged hide, 
Have liv'd a second life, and different natures try'd. 
Then will thy Ovid, thus transform'd, reveal 
A nobler change than he himself can tell. 

72 — Joseph Addison 



(From) 

THE FIRST EPISTLE OF THE SECOND BOOK 
OF HORACE 

Dryden taught to join 
The varying verse, the full resounding line, 
The long majestic march, and energy divine 
Tho' still some traces of our rustic vein 
And splay-foot verse remain'd, and will remain. 

E 'en copious Dryden wanted, or forgot, 
The last and greatest art — the art to blot. 

— Alexander Pope 
(From) 

MARMION 
(introduction to canto first) 

The mightiest chiefs of British song 
Scorn'd not such legends to prolong: 
They gleam through Spenser's elfin dream, 
And mix in Milton's heavenly theme; 
And Dryden, in immortal strain, 
Had raised the Table Round again, 
But that a ribald King and Court 
Bade him toil on, to make them sport; 
Demanded for their niggard pay, 
Fit for their souls, a looser lay, 
Licentious satire, song, and play; 
The world defrauded of the high design, 
Profaned the God-given strength, and marr'd the 

lofty line. 

— Walter Scott 



7S 



(From) 

THE VILLAGE CURATE 

Then comes a bard, 
Worn out and penniless, and poet still, 
Though bent with years, and in impetuous rhyme 
Pours out his unexhausted song. What muse 
So flexible, so generous as thine, 
Immortal Dry den! From her copious fount 
Large draughts he took, and unbeseeming song 
Inebriated sang. Who does not grieve 
To hear the foul and insolent rebuke 
Of angry satire from a bard so rare, 
To trace the lubricous and oily course 
Of abject adulation, the lewd line 
Of shameless vice from page to page, and find 
The judgment bribed, the heart unprincipled, 
And only loyal at the expense of truth, 
Of justice, and of virtue? 

— James Hurdis 

DRYDEN 

Then Dryden came, a mind of giant mould, 
Like the north wind, impetuous, keen, and cold; 
Born to effect what Waller but essay'd, 
In rank and file his numbers he array 'd, 
Compact as troops exact in battle's trade. 
Firm by constraint, and regularly strong, 
His vigorous lines resistless march along, 
By martial music order'd and inspired, 
Like glowing wheels by their own motion fired. 
So as a nation long inured to arms, 
And stirring strains, fierce pleasures, brisk alarms, 
Disdains a calm, and can no longer bear 
A soft, a pensive, or a solemn air; 
Thus Dryden taught the English to despise 
The simply sweet, long-lingering melodies 
That lovely Spenser and his thoughtful peers 

74 



Had warbled erst to rapt attentive ears. 
E'en Milton's billowy ocean of high sound, 
Delighted little, though it might astound; 
The restless crowd impatient turn'd away, 
And sought a shorter, shriller, lighter lay. 

Yet Dryden nobly earn'd the poet's name, 
And won new honours from the gift of fame. 
His life was long, and when his head was grey, 
His fortune broken, and usurp'd his bay, 
His dauntless genius own'd no cold dismay; 
Nor in repining notes of vain regret 
He made his crack'd pipe pitifully fret. 
But when cashier'd and laid upon the shelf, 
To shame the court excell'd his former self, 
Who meant to clip, but imp'd his moulted wings, 
And cured him of his ancient itch of praising kings. 
He sat gigantic on the shore of time, 
And watch'd the ingress of encroaching slime, 
Nor dream'd how much of evil or of good 
Might work amid the far unfathom'd flood. 

—Hartley Coleridge 



75 



ALEXANDER POPE 

1688-1744 




ALEXANDER POPE 



{From) 



TO MR. POPE 
1728 

Three times I've read your Illiad o'er; 

The first time pleas'd me well; 
New beauties unobserv'd before, 

Next pleas'd me better still. 

Again I tri'd to find a flaw, 

Examin'd ilka line; 
The third time pleas'd me best of a', 

The labour seem'd divine. 

Henceforward I'll not tempt my fate, 

On dazzling rays to stare, 
Lest I should tine dear self-conceit, 

And read and write nae mair. 

— Allan Ramsay 

ON A MISCELLANY OF POEMS 



When Pope's harmonious muse with pleasure roves, 
Amidst the plains, the murm'ring streams and groves, 
Attentive Echo, pleased to hear his songs, 
Thro' the glad shade each warbling note prolongs ; 
His various numbers charm our ravish'd ears, 
His steady judgment far out-shoots his years, 
And early in youth the god appears. 

— John Gay 

{From) 

THE WANDERER 

CANTO I 

Pope, the monarch of the tuneful train ! 

To whom be Nature's, and Britannia's praise! 
All their bright honours rush into his lays ! 
And all that glorious warmth his lays reveal, 

79 



Which only poets, kings, and patriots feel! 
Tho' gay as mirth, as curious though sedate, 
As elegance polite, as pow'r elate; 
Profound as reason, and as justice clear; 
Soft as compassion, yet as truth severe; 
As bounty copious, as persuasion sweet, 
Like Nature various, and like Art complete; 
So fine her morals, so sublime her views, 
His life is almost equall'd by his Muse. 

— Richard Savage 

LINES TO ALEXANDER POPE 

While malice, Pope, denies thy page 
Its own celestial fires; 
While critics, and while bards in rage, 
Admiring, won't admire: 

While wayward pens thy worth assail, 

And envious tongues decry ; 

These times, though many a friend bewail, 

These times bewail not I. 

But when the world's loud praise is thine, 

And spleen no more shall blame : 

When with thy Homer thou shalt shine 

In one unclouded fame : 

When none shall rail, and every lay 
Devote a wreath to thee; 
That day, (for come it will,) that day 
Shall I lament to see. 

— David Lewis 



{From) 



TABLE TALK 

Then Pope, as harmony itself exact, 
In verse well disciplined, complete, compact, 
80 



Gave virtue and morality a grace 

That quite eclipsing pleasure's painted face, 

Levied a tax of wonder and applause, 

Even on the fools that trampled on their laws. 

But he, (his musical finesse was such, 

So nice his ear, so delicate his touch) 

Made poetry a mere mechanic art, 

And every warbler has his tune by heart. 

— William Cowper 

TO MR. POPE 

To move the springs of nature as we please, 
To think with spirit, but to write with ease : 
With living words to warm the conscious heart, 
Or please the soul with nicer charms of art, 
For this the Grecian soar'd in epic strains, 
And softer Maro left the Mantuan plains : 
Melodious Spenser felt the lover's fire, 
And awful Milton strung his heavenly lyre. 

'Tis yours, like these, with curious toil to trace 
The powers of language, harmony, and grace, 
How nature's self with living lustre shines; 
How judgment strengthens, and how art refines; 
How to grow bold with conscious sense of fame, 
And force a pleasure which we dare not blame; 
To charm us more through negligence than pains, 
And give ev'n life and action to the strains : 
Led by some law, whose powerful impulse guides 
Each happy stroke, and in the soul presides : 
Some fairer image of perfection, giv'n 
To inspire mankind, itself deriv'd from Heav'n. 

O ever worthy, ever crown'd with praise; 
Bless'd in thy life, and bless'd in all thy lays ! 
Add, that the Sisters every thought refine: 
Or ev'n thy life be faultless as thy line : 
Yet envy still with fiercer rage pursues, 
Obscures the virtue, and defames the muse, 

81 



A soul like thine, in pains, in grief resign'd, 
Views with vain scorn the malice of mankind : 
Not critics, but their planets prove unjust: 
And are they blam'd who sin because they must? 

Yet sure not so must all pursue thy lays; 
I cannot rival — and yet dare to praise. 
A thousand charms at once my thoughts engage, 
Sappho's soft sweetness, Pindar's warmer rage, 
Statius' free vigour, Virgil's studious care, 
And Homer's force, and Ovid's easier air. 

So seems some picture, where exact design, 
And curious pains, and strength and sweetness join : 
Where the free thought its pleasing grace bestows, 
And each warm stroke with living colour glows: 
Soft without weakness, without labour fair; 
Wrought up at once with happiness and care ! 

How bless'd the man that from the world removes 
To joys that Mordaunt, or his Pope approves; 
Whose taste exact each author can explore, 
And live the present and past ages o'er: 
Who free from pride, from penitence, or strife, 
Move calmly forward to the verge of life: 
Such be my days, and such my fortunes be, 
To live by reason, and to write by thee ! 

Nor deem this verse, though humble, thy disgrace : 
All are not born the glory of their race: 
Yet all are born to adore the great man's name, 
And trace his footsteps in the paths to fame. 
The Muse who now this early homage pays, 
First learn'd from thee to animate her lays: 
A muse as yet unhonour'd, but unstain'd, 
Who prais'd no vices, no preferment gain'd: 
Unbiass'd or to censure or commend, 
Who knows no envy, and who grieves no friend; 
Perhaps too fond to make those virtues known, 
And fix her fame immortal on thy own. 

— Walter Harte 

82 



EPISTLE TO MR. ALEXANDER POPE 

From mortal Gratitude, decide, my Pope, 
Have Wits Immortal more to fear or hope? 
Wits toil and travail round the Plant of Fame, 
Their Works its Garden, and its Growth their Aim, 
Then Commentators, in unwieldy Dajnce, 
Break down the Barriers of the trim Pleasance, 
Pursue the Poet, like Actaeon's Hounds, 
Beyond the fences of his Garden Grounds, 
Rend from the singing Robes each borrowed Gem, 
Rend from the laUrel'd Brows the Diadem, 
And, if one Rag of Character they spare, 
Comes the Biographer, and strips it bare! 

Such, Pope, has been thy Fortune, such thy Doom. 
Swift the Ghouls gathered at the Poet's Tomb, 
With Dust of Notes to clog each lordly Line, 
Warburton, Warton, Croker, Bowles, combine! 
Collecting Cackle, Johnson condescends 
To interview the Drudges of your Friends. 
Though still your Courthope holds your merits high, 
And still proclaims your Poems Poetry, 
Biographers, un-Boswell-like, have sneered, 
And Dunces edit him whom Dunces feared ! 

They say; what say they? Not in vain You ask. 
To tell you what they say, behold my Task ! 
'Methinks already I your Tears survey' 
As I repeat "the horrid Things they say.'* 

Comes El— -n first : I fancy you'll agree 

Not frenzied Dennis smote so fell as he ; 

For El — n's Introduction, crabbed and dry, 

Like Churchill's Cudgel's} marked with Lie, and Lie ! 

*Rape of the Lock. fin Mr. Hogarth's Caricatura. 

83 



'Too dull to know what his own System meant, 

Pope yet was skilled new Treasons to invent; 

A Snake that puffed himself and stung his Friends, 

Few Lied so frequent, for such little Ends; 

His mind, like Flesh inflamed,* was raw and sore, 

And still, the more he writhed, he stung the more! 

Oft in a Quarrel, never in the Right, 

His Spirit sank when he was called to fight. 

Pope, in the Darkness mining like a Mole, 

Forged on Himself, as from Himself he stole, 

And what for Caryll once he feigned to feel, 

Transferred, in Letters never sent, to Steele! 

Still he denied the Letters he had writ, 

And still mistook Indecency for Wit. 

His very Grammar, so DeQuincey cries, 

"Detains the Reader, and at times defies!" ' 

Fierce El — n thus : no Line escapes his Rage, 

And furious Foot-notes growl 'neath every Page: 

See St-ph-n next take up the woful Tale, 

Prolong the Preaching, and protract the Wail! 

'Some forage Falsehoods from the North and South, 

But Pope, poor D — 1, lied from Hand to Mouth ;f 

Affected, hypocritical, and vain, 

A Book in Breeches, and a Fop in Grain; 

A Fox that found not the high Clusters sour, 

The Fanfaron of Vice beyond his power, 

Pope yet possessed' — (the Praise will make you start) — 

'Mean, morbid, vain, he yet possessed a Heart! 

And still we marvel at the Man, and still 

Admire his Finish, and applaud his Skill: 

Though, as that fabled Barque, a phantom Form, 

Eternal strains, nor rounds the Cape of Storm, 

Even so Pope strove, nor ever crossed the Line 

That from the Noble separates the Fine!' 

*Elwin's Pope, ii. 15. 

t'Poor Pope was always a hand-to-mouth liar/ Pope, by Leslie 
Stephen, 139. 

84 



The Learned thus, and who can quite reply. 
Reverse the Judgment, and Retort the Lie? 
You reap, in armed Hates that haunt Your name, 
Reap what you sowed, the Dragon's Teeth of Fame: 
You could not write, and from unenvious Time 
Expect the Wreath that crowns the lofty Rhyme, 
You still must fight, retreat, attack, defend. 
And oft, to snatch a Laurel, lose a Friend! 

The Pity of it! And the changing Taste 
Of changing Time leaves half your Work a Waste ! 
My Childhood fled your couplet's clarion tone, 
And sought for Homer in the Prose of Bohn. 
Still through the Dust of that dim Prose appears 
The Flight of Arrows and the Sheen of Spears; 
Still we may trace what Hearts heroic feel, 
And hear the Bronze that hurtles on the Steel ! 
But, ah, your Iliad seems half-pretence, 
Where Wits, not Heroes, prove their Skill in Fence, 
And great Achilles' Eloquence doth show 
As if no Centaur trained him, but Boileau! 

Again, your Verse is orderly, — and more, — 
'The Waves behind impel the Waves before;' 
Monotonously musical they glide, 
Till Couplet unto Couplet hath replied. 
But turn to Homer! How his Verses sweep! 
Surge answers Surge and Deep doth call on Deep; 
This Line in Foam and Thunder issues forth, 
Spurred by the West or smitten by the North, 
Sombre in all its slullen Deeps, and all 
Clear at the Crest, and foaming to the Fall, 
The next with silver Murmur dies away, 
Like Tides that falter to Calypso's Bay! 
Thus Time, with sordid Alchemy and dread, 
Turns half the Glory of your Gold to Lead; 
Thus Time, — at Ronsard's wreath that vainly bit,— 
Has marred the Poet to preserve the Wit, 

85 



Who almost left on Addison a stain, 

Whose knife cut cleanest with a poisoned pain, — 

Yet Thou (strange Fate that clings to all of Thine !) 

When most a Wit dost most a Poet shine. 

In Poetry thy Dunciad expires, 

When Wit has shot 'her momentary Fires.' 

'T is Tragedy that watches by the Bed 

'Where tawdry Yellow strove with dirty Red,' 

And Men, remembering all, can scarce deny 

To lay the Laurel where thine Ashes lie! 

— Andrew Lang 



86 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

1728-1774 




OLIVER GOLDSMITH 



JUPITER AND MERCURY 

A FABLE 

Here Hermes, says Jove who with nectar was mellow, 

Go fetch me some clay — I will make an odd fellow: 

Right and wrong shall be jumbled — much gold and some 

dross; 
Without cause be he pleas'd, without cause be he cross; 
Be sure as I work to throw in contradictions, 
A great love of truth; y£t a mind turn'd to fictions; 
Now mix these ingredients, which warm'd in the baking, 
Turn to learning, and gaming, religion and raking. 
With the love of a wench, let his writings be chaste; 
Tip his tongue with strange matter, his pen with fine 

taste; 
That the rake and the poet o'er all may prevail, 
Set fire to the head, and set fire to the tail : 
For the joy of each sex, on the world I'll bestow it: 
This Scholar, Rake, Christian, Dupe, Gamester and Poet, 
Thro' a mixture so odd, he shall merit great fame, 
And among brother mortals — be GOLDSMITH his name ! 
When on earth this strange meteor no more shall appear, 
You, Hermes, shall fetch him — to make us sport here! 

— David Garrick 

(From) 

THE STREATHAM PORTRAITS 

From our Goldsmith's anomalous character, who 
Can withhold his contempt, and his reverence too? 
From a poet so polished, so paltry a fellow ! 
From critic, historian, or vile Punchinello! 
From a heart in which meanness had made her abode, 
From a foot that each path of vulgarity trod; 
From a head to invent and a hand to adorn, 
Unskilled in the schools, a philosopher born. 
By disguise undefended, by jealousy smit, 

89 



This lusus naturae nondescript in wit, 

May best be compared to those Anamorphoses; 

Which for lectures to ladies th' optician proposes; 

All deformity seeming, in some points of view, 

In others quite accurate, regular, true : 

Till the student no more sees the figure that shocked her, 

But all in his likeness, — our odd little doctor, 

— Hester Lynch Piozzi 



(From) 

ERIN 

Forgettest thou thy bard, who hurried home 
From distant lands and, bent by poverty, 
Reposed among the quiet scenes he loved 
In native Auburn, nor disdain'd to join 
The village dancers on the sanded floor? 
No poet since hath Nature drawn so close 
To her pure bosom as her Oliver. 

— Walter Savage Landor 

(From) 

YOUNG AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 

But gentler GOLDSMITH, whom no man could hate, 
Beloved by Heaven, pursued by wayward fate, 
Whose verse shall live in every British mind, 
Though sweet, yet strong; though nervous, yet refined; — 
A motley part he play'd in life's gay scene, 
The dupe of vanity and wayward spleen; 
Aping the world, a strange fantastic elf; 
Great, generous, noble, when he was himself. 

— Hartley Coleridge 



90 



GOLDSMITH'S WHISTLE 

As fabled beasts before the lyre 

Fell prone, so want and hunger fled; 
The way was free to his desire, 

And he like one with manna fed. 
The world, the world, for him was meant; 

Cathedral towers, and Alpine torrents ! 
He trod a measure as he went, 

And piped and sang his way to Florence! 
Great wit and scholar though he be, 

I love, of all his famous days, 
This time of simple vagrancy 

Ere youth and bliss had parted ways. 
With what a careless heart he strayed, 

Light as the down upon a thistle, 
Made other hearts his own, and paid 

His way through Europe with a whistle! 

— Harriet Prescott Spofford 



91 



WILLIAM COWPER 

1731-1800 




WILLIAM COWPER 



IN MEMORY OF WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. 

BORN IN HERTFORDSHIRE, 1731 
BURIED IN THIS CHURCH, 1800 

Ye, who with warmth the public triumph feel 
Of talents, dignified by sacred zeal, 
Here, to devotion's Bard devoutly just, 
Pay your fond tribute due to Cowper's dust! 
England, exulting in his spotless fame, 
Ranks with her dearest sons his fav'rite name; 
Sense, fancy, wit, suffice not all to raise 
So clear a title to affection's praise : 
His highest honors to the heart belong; 
His virtues form'd the magic of his song. 

— William Hayley 



(From) 

THE PURSUITS OF LITERATURE 

With England's Bard, with Cowper who shall vie? 
Original in strength and dignity, 
With more than painter's fancy blest, with lays 
Holy, as saints to heav'n expiring raise. 

— Thomas James Mathias 

THE HARP, AND DESPAIR, OF COWPER 

Sweet bard, whose tones great Milton might approve, 

And Shakespeare, from high Fancy's sphere, 

Turning to the sound his ear* 
Bend down a look of sympathy and love; 

Oh, swell the lyre again, 

As if in full accord it poured an angel's strain ! 
But oh ! what means that look aghast, 

Ev'n whilst it seemed in holy trance, 

On scenes of bliss above to glance ! 

95 



Was it a fiend of darkness passed ! 
Oh, speak — 
Paleness is upon his cheek — 
On his brow the big drops stand, 

To airy vacancy 
Points the dread silence of his eye, 
And the loved lyre it falls, falls from his nerveless hand! 
Come, peace of mind, delightful guest! 
Oh, come, and make thy downy nest 

Once more on this sad heart! 
Meek Faith, a drop of comfort shed; 
Sweet Hope, support his aged head; 
And Charity, avert the burning dart! 
Fruitless the prayer — the night of deeper woes 
Seems o'er the head even now to close; 
In vain the path of purity he trod, 

In vain, in vain, 
He poured from Fancy's shell his sweetest hermit strain- 
He has no hope on earth: forsake him not, O God! 

— William Lisle Bowles 

(From) 

LAST FRUIT OFF AN OLD TREE 

CCVIII 

Tenderest of tender hearts, of spirits pure 
The purest! such, O Cowper! such wert thou, 
But such are not the happiest : thou wert not, 
Till borne where all those hearts and spirits rest. 
Young was I, when from Latin lore and Greek 
I played the truant for thy sweeter Task, 
Nor since that hour hath aught our Muses held 
Before me seem'd so precious; in one hour, 
I saw the poet and the sage unite, 
More grave than man, more versatile than boy! 
— Walter Savage Landor 

96 



COWPER'S GRAVE 

I 

It is a place where poets crowned may feel the heart's 

decaying; 
It is a place where happy saints may weep amid their 

praying: 
Yet let the grief and humbleness as low as silence languish : 
Earth surely now may give her calm to whom she gave 

her anguish. 

II 

O poets, from a maniac's tongue was poured the deathless 
singing! 

O Christians, at your cross of hope a hopeless hand was 
clinging! 

O men, this man in brotherhood your weary paths be- 
guiling, 

Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and died while ye 
were smiling! 

Ill 

And now, what time ye all may read through dimming 

tears his story, 
How discord on the music fell, and darkness on the glory, 
And how when, one by one, sweet sounds and wandering 

lights departed, 
He wore no less a loving face because so broken-hearted, 

IV 

He shall be strong to sanctify the poet's high vocation, 
And bow the meekest Christian down in meeker adoration; 
Nor ever shall he be, in praise, by wise or good forsaken, 
Named softly as the household name of one whom God 
hath taken. 

97 



With quiet sadness and no gloom I learn to think upon 

him, 
With meekness that is gratefulness to God whose heaven 

hath won him, 
Who suffered once the madness-cloud to His own love to 

blind him; 
But gently led the blind along where breath and bird could 

find him, 

VI 

And wrought within his shattered brain such quick poetic 
senses 

As hills have language for, and stars, harmonious in- 
fluences: 

The pulse of dew upon the grass kept his within its number, 

And silent shadows from the trees refreshed him like a 
slumber. 

VII 

Wild, timid hares were drawn from woods to share his 

home-caresses, 
Uplooking to his human eyes with sylvan tendernesses : 
The very world, by God's constraint, from falsehood's 

ways removing, 
Its women and its men became, beside him, true and 

loving. 

VIII 

And though, in blindness, he remained unconscious of 

that guiding, 
And things provided came without the sweet sense of 

providing, 
He testified this solemn truth, while frenzy desolated, 
— Nor man nor nature satisfies whom only God created. 

08 



IX 

Like a sick child that knoweth not his mother while she 

blesses, 
And drops upon his burning brow the coolness of her kisses; 
That turns his fevered eyes around — "My mother! where's 

my mother?" 
As if such tender word and deeds could come from any 

other! — 



The fever gone, with leaps of heart he sees her bending 

o'er him, 
Her face all pale from watchful love, — the unweary love 

she bore him ! — 
Thus woke the poet from the dream his life's long fever 

gave him, 
Beneath those deep pathetic Eyes which closed in death to 

save him. 

XI 

Thus? oh, not thus! no type of earth can image that 

awaking 
Wherein he scarcely heard the chant of seraphs round him 

breaking, 
Or felt the new immortal throb of soul from body parted, 
But felt those eyes alone, and knew, — "My Saviour! not 

deserted!" 

XII 

Deserted! Who hath dreamt, that when the cross in 

darkness rested, 
Upon the victim's hidden face no love was manifested? 
What frantic hands outstretched have e'er the atoning 

drops averted? 
What tears have washed them from the soul, that one 

should be deserted? 

99 



XIII 

Deserted! God could separate from his own essence rather; 
And Adam's sins have swept between the righteous Son 

and Father : 
Yea, once Immanuel's orphaned cry his universe hath 

shaken — 
It went up single, echoless, "My God, I am forsaken!" 

XIV 

It went up from the Holy's lips amid his lost creation, 

That of the lost no son should use those words of desola- 
tion; 

That earth's worst frenzies, marring hope, should mar not 
hope's fruition; 

And I, oji Cowper's grave, should see his rapture in a 
vision. 

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

TO COWPER 

Sweet are thy strains, Celestial Bard; 

And oft, in childhood's years, 
I 've read them o'er and o'er again, 

With floods of silent tears, 

The language of my inmost heart 

I traced in every line; 
My sins, my sorrows, hopes, and fears, 

Were there — and only mine. 

All for myself the sigh would swell, 

The tear of anguish start; 
I little knew what wilder woe 

Had filled the Poet's heart. 

I did not know the nights of gloom, 
The days of misery: 
100 



The long, long years of dark despair, 
That crushed and tortured thee. 

But they are gone; from earth at length 

Thy gentle soul is pass'd, 
And in the bosom of its God 

Has found its home at last. 

It must be so, if God is love, 

And answers fervent prayer; 
Then surely thou shalt dwell on high, 

And I may meet thee there. 

Is He the source of every good, 

The spring of purity? 
Then in thine hours of deepest woe, 

Thy God was still with thee. 

How else, when every hope was fled, 

Could thou so fondly cling 
To holy things and holy men? 

And how so sweetly sing 

Of things that God alone could teach? 

And whence that purity, 
That hatred of all sinful ways — 

That gentle charity? 

Are these the symptoms of a heart 

Of heavenly grace bereft — 
Forever banished from its God, 

To Satan's fury left? 

Yet, should thy darkest fears be true, 

If Heaven be so severe, 
That such a soul as thine is lost, — 

Oh! how shall / appear? 

— Anne Bronte 



101 



ROBERT BURNS 
1759-1796 




ROBERT BURNS 



A BARD'S EPITAPH 

Is there a whim-inspired fool, 

Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule, 

Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool, 

Let him draw near; 
And owre this grassy heap sing dool, 

And drap a tear. 

Is there a bard of rustic song, 

Who, noteless, steals the crowds among, 

That weekly this area throng, 

O, pass not by! 
But, with a frater-feeling strong, 

Here heave a sigh. 

Is there a man whose judgment clear, 
Can others teach the course to steer, 
Yet runs, himself, life's mad career, 

Wild as the wave; 
Here pause — and, thro' the starting tear, 

Survey this grave. 

The poor inhabitant below 

Was quick to learn and wise to know, 

And keenly felt the friendly glow, 

And softer flame; 
But thoughtless follies laid him low, 

And stain'd his name! 

Reader, attend ! whether thy soul 
Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole, 
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole, 

In low pursuit; 
Know prudent cautious self-control 

Is wisdom's root. 

— Robert Burns 

105 



AT THE GRAVE OF BURNS 

SEVEN YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH 

I shiver, Spirit fierce and bold, 

At thought of what I now behold: 

As vapours breathed from dungeons cold 

Strike pleasure dead, 
So sadness comes from out the mould 

Where Burns is laid. 

And have I then thy bones so near, 
And thou forbidden to appear? 
As if it were thyself that's here 

I shrink with pain; 
And both my wishes and my fear 

Alike are vain. 

Off weight — nor press on weight ! — away 
Dark thoughts! — they came, but not to stay; 
With chastened feelings would I pay 

The tribute due 
To him, and aught that hides his clay 

From mortal view. 

Fresh as the flower, whose modest worth 
He sang, his genius "glinted" forth, 
Rose like a star that touching earth, 

For so it seems, 
Doth glorify its humble birth 

With matchless beams. 

The piercing eye, the thoughtful brow, 
The struggling heart, where be they now? — 
Full soon the Aspirant of the plough, 

The prompt, the brave, 
Slept, with the obscurest, in the low 

And silent grave. 
106 



I mourned with thousands, but as one 
More deeply grieved, for He was gone 
Whose light I hailed when first it shone, 

And showed my youth 
How Verse may build a princely throne 

On humble truth. 

Alas! where'er the current tends, 
Regret pursues and with it blends, — 
Huge Criffel's hoary top ascends 

By Skiddaw seen, — 
Neighbours we were, and loving friends 

We might have been; 

True friends though diversely inclined; 
But heart with heart and mind with mind, 
Where the main fibres are entwined, 

Through Nature's skill, 
May even by contraries be joined 

More closely still. 

The tear will start, and let it flow; 
Thou "poor Inhabitant below," 
At this dread moment — even so — 

Might we together 
Have sate and talked where gowans blow, 

Or on wild heather. 

What treasures would have then been placed 
Within my reach; of knowledge graced 
By fancy what a rich repast! 

But why go on? — 
Oh! spare to sweep, thou mournful blast, 

His grave grass-grown. . 

There, too, a Son, his joy and pride, 
(Not three weeks past the Stripling died,) 
Lies gathered to his Father's side, 
107 



Soul-moving sight! 
Yet one to which is not denied 
Some sad delight. 

For he is safe, a quiet bed 

Hath early found among the dead, 

Harboured where none can be misled, 

Wronged, or distrest; 
And surely here it may be said 

That such are blest. 

And oh for Thee, by pitying grace 
Checked oft-times in a devious race, 
May He who halloweth the place 

Where Man is laid, 
Receive thy Spirit in the embrace 

For which it prayed ! 

Sighing I turned away; but ere 
Night fell I heard, or seemed to hear, 
Music that sorrow comes not near, 

A ritual hymn, 
Chanted in love that casts out fear 

By Seraphim. 

— William Wordsworth 



THOUGHTS 

SUGGESTED THE DAY FOLLOWING, ON THE BANKS OF NITH, 
NEAR THE POET'S RESIDENCE 

Too frail to keep the lofty vow 

That must have followed when his brow 

Was wreathed — "The Vision" tells us how — 

With holly spray, 
He faltered, drifted to and fro, 

Aitd passed away. 
108 



Well might such thoughts, dear Sister, throng 
Our minds when, lingering all too long, 
Over the grave of Burns we hung 

In social grief — 
Indulged as if it were a wrong 

To seek relief. 

But, leaving each unquiet theme 
Where gentlest judgments may misdeem, 
And prompt to welcome every gleam 

Of good and fair, 
Let us beside this limpid Stream 

Breathe hopeful air. 

Enough of sorrow, wreck, and blight; 
Think rather of those moments bright 
When to the consciousness of right 

His course was true, 
When Wisdom prospered in his sight 

And virtue grew. 

Yes, freely let our hearts expand, 
Freely as in youth's season bland, 
When side by side, his Book in hand, 

We wont to stray, 
Our pleasure varying at comand 

Of each sweet Lay. 

How oft inspired must he have trod 
These pathways, yon far-stretching road ! 
There lurks his home; in that Abode, 

With mirth elate, 
Or in his nobly-pensive mood, 

The Rustic sate. 

Proud thoughts that Image overawes, 
Before it humbly let us pause, 
And ask of Nature, from what cause 
109 



And by what rules 
She trained her Burns to win applause 
That shames the Schools. 

Through busiest street and loneliest glen 

Are felt the flashes of his pen; 

He rules "mid winter snows, and when 

Bees fill their hives; 
Deep in the general heart of men 

His power survives. 

What need of fields in some far clime 
Where Heroes, Sages, Bards sublime, 
And all that fetched the flowing rhyme 

From genuine springs, 
Shall dwell together till old Time 

Folds up his wings? 

Sweet Mercy ! to the gates of Heaven 
This Minstrel lead, his sins forgiven; 
The rueful conflict, the heart riven 

With vain endeavour, 
And memory of Earth's bitter leaven, 

Effaced for ever. 

But why to Him confine the prayer, 
When kindred thoughts and yearnings bear 
On the frail heart the purest share 

With all that live?— 
The best of what we do and are, 

Just God, forgive! 

— William Wordsworth 



ROBERT BURNS 

What bird, in beauty, flight, or song, 

Can with the Bard compare, 
Who sang as sweet, and soar'd as strong, 
As ever child of air? 
110 



His plume, his note, his form, could BURNS 

For whim or pleasure change; 
He was not one, but all by turns, 

With transmigration strange. 

The Blackbird, oracle of spring, 

When flow'd his moral lay; 
The Swallow wheeling on the wing, 

Capriciously at play : 

The Humming-bird, from bloom to bloom, 

Inhaling heavenly balm; 
The Raven, in the tempest's gloom; 

The Halcyon, in the calm : 

In "auld Kirk Alloway," the Owl, 

At witching time of night; 
By "bonnie Doon," the earliest Fowl 

That caroll'd to the light. 

He was the Wren amidst the grove, 

When in his homely vein; 
At Bannockburn the Bird of Jove, 

With thunder in his train : 

The Woodlark, in his mournful hours; 

The Goldfinch, in his mirth; 
The Thrush, a spendthrift of his powers, 

Enrapturing heaven and earth; 

The Swan, in majesty and grace, 

Contemplative and still: 
But roused, — no Falcon, in the chase, 

Could like his satire kill. 

The Linnet in simplicity, 

In tenderness the Dove; 
But more than all beside was he 

The Nightingale in love. 
Ill 



Oh ! had he never stoop'd to shame, 

Nor lent a charm to vice, 
How had Devotion loved to name 

That Bird of Paradise! 

Peace to the dead ! — in Scotia's choir 

Of Minstrels great and small, 
He sprang from his spontaneous fire, 

The Phoenix of them all. 

— James Montgomery 

WRITTEN IN BURNS' COTTAGE 

This mortal body of a thousand days 
Now fills, O Burns, a space in thine own room, 
Where thou didst dream alone on budded bays, 
Happy and thoughtless of thy day of doom ! 
My pulse is warm with thine own Barley-bree, 
My head is light with pledging a great soul, 
My eyes are wandering, and I cannot see, 
Fancy is dead and drunken at its goal; 
Yet can I stamp my foot upon thy floor, 
Yet can I ope thy window-sash to find 
The meadow thou hast tramped o'er and o'er, — 
Yet can I think of thee till thought is blind, — 
Yet can I gulp a bumper to thy name, — 
O smile among the shades, for this is fame! 

— John Keats 

ROBERT BURNS* 

I see amid the fields of Ayr 

A ploughman, who, in foul and fair, 

Sings at his task 
So clear, we know not if it is 
The laverock's song we hear, or his, 
Nor care to ask. 
"Copyright 1880 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; 1908 by Ernest W. 
Longfellow. By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. 
112 



For him the ploughing of those fields 
A more ethereal harvest yields 

Than sheaves of grain; 
Songs flush with purple bloom the rye, 
The plover's call, the curlew's cry, 

Sing in his brain. 

Touched by his hand, the wayside weed 
Becomes a flower; the lowliest reed 

Beside the stream 
Is clothed with beauty; gorse and grass 
And heather, where his footsteps pass, 

The brighter seem. 

He sings of love, whose flame illumes 
The darkness of lone cottage rooms; 

He feels the force, 
The treacherous undertow and stress 
Of wayward passions, and no less 

The keen remorse. 

At moments, wrestling with his fate, 
His voice is harsh, but not with hate; 

The brush-wood, hung 
Above the tavern door, lets fall 
Its bitter leaf, its drop of gall 

Upon his tongue. 

But still the music of his song 
Rises o'er all, elate and strong; 

Its master-chords 
Are Manhood, Freedom, Brotherhood, 
Its discords but an interlude 

Between the words. 

And then to die so young and leave 
Unfinished what he might achieve! 
Yet better sure 
113 



Is this, than wandering up and down, 
An old man in a country town, 
Infirm and poor. 

For now he haunts his native land 
As an immortal youth; his hand 

Guides every plough; 
He sits beside each ingle-nook, 
His voice is in each rushing brook, 

Each rustling bough. 

His presence haunts this room to-night, 
A form of mingled mist and light 

From that far coast. 
Welcome beneath this roof of mine ! 
Welcome ! this vacant chair is thine, 

Dear guest and ghost! 

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 



BURNS 

ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF HEATHER IN BLOSSOM 

No more these simple flowers belong 

To Scottish maid and lover; 
Sown in the common soil of song, 

They bloom the wide world over. 

In smiles and tears, in sun and showers, 

The minstrel and the heather, 
The deathless singer and the flowers 

He sang of live together. 

Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns! 

The moorland flower and peasant! 
How, at their mention, memory turns 

Her pages old and pleasant! 
114 



The gray sky wears a^ain its gold 

And purple of adorning, 
And manhood's noonday shadows hold 

The dews of boyhood's morning. 

The dews that washed the dust and soil 
From off the wings of pleasure, 

The sky, that flecked the ground of toil 
With golden threads of leisure. 

I call to mind the summer day, 

The early harvest mowing, 
The sky with sun and clouds at play, 

And flowers with breezes blowing. 

I hear the blackbird in the corn, 

The locust in the haying; 
And, like the fabled hunter's horn, 

Old tunes my heart is playing. 

How oft that day, with fond delay, 

I sought the maple's shadow, 
And sang with Burns the hours away, 

Forgetful of the meadow! 

Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead 

I heard the squirrels leaping, 
The good dog listened while I read, 

And wagged his tail in keeping. 

I watched him while in sportive mood 

I read " The twa Dogs 9 " story, 
And half believed he understood 

The poet's allegory. 

Sweet day, sweet songs! The golden hours 

Grew brighter for that singing, 
From brook and bird and meadow flowers 

A dearer welcome bringing. 
115 



New light on home-seen Nature beamed, 

New glory over Woman; 
And daily life and duty seemed 

No longer poor and common. 

I woke to find the simple truth 

Of fact and feeling better 
Than all the dreams that held my youth 

A still repining debtor: 

That Nature gives her handmaid, Art, 
The themes of sweet discoursing; 

The tender idyls of the heart 
In every tongue rehearsing. 

Why dream of lands of gold and pearl, 

Of loving knight and lady, 
When farmer boy and barefoot girl 

Were wandering there already? 

I saw through all familiar things 
The romance underlying; 
The joys and griefs that plume the wings 
Of Fancy skyward flying. 

I saw the same blithe day return, 

The same sweet fall of even, 
That rose on wooded Craigie-burn, 

And sank on crystal Devon. 

I matched with Scotland's heathery hills 
The sweetbrier and the clover; 

With Ayr and Doon, my native rills, 
Their wood hymns chanting over. 

O'er rank and pomp, as he had seen, 

I saw the Man uprising; 
No longer common or unclean, 

The child of God's baptizing! 
116 



With clearer eyes I saw the worth 

Of life among the lowly; 
The Bible at his Cotter's hearth 

Had made my own more holy. 

And if at times an evil strain, 

To lawless love appealing, 
Broke in upon the sweet refrain 

Of pure and healthful feeling, 

It died upon the eye and ear, 

No inward answer gaining; 
No heart had I to see or hear 

The discord and the staining. 

Let those who never erred forget 
His worth, in vain bewailings; 

Sweet Soul of Song! I own my debt 
Uncancelled by his failings ! 

Lament who will the ribald line 
Which tells his lapse from duty, 

How kissed the maddening lips of wine 
Or wanton ones of beauty; 

But think, while falls that shade between 

The erring one and Heaven, 
That he who loved like Magdalen, 

Like her may be forgiven. 

Not his the song whose thunderous chime 

Eternal echoes render; 
The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme, 

And Milton's starry splendor! 

But who his human heart has laid 

To Nature's bosom nearer? 
Who sweetened toil like him, or paid 

To love a tribute dearer? 
117 



Through all his tuneful art, how strong 

The human feeling gushes ! 
The very moonlight of his song 

Is warm with smiles and blushes ! 

Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, 

So "Bonnie Doon" but tarry; 
Blot out the Epic's stately rhyme, 

But spare his Highland Mary ! 

— John Greenleaf Whittier 

FOR THE BURNS CENTENNIAL 
CELEBRATION 

His birthday. — Nay, we need not speak 
The name each heart is beating, — 

Each glistening eye and flushing cheek 
In light and flame repeating ! 

We come in one tumultuous tide, — 

One surge of wild emotion, — 
As crowding through the Frith of Clyde 

Rolls in the Western Ocean; 

As when yon cloudless, quartered moon 

Hangs o'er each storied river, 
The swelling breasts of Ayr and Dono 

With sea-green wavelets quiver. 

The century shrivels like a scroll, — 
The past becomes the present, — 
And face to face, and soul to soul, 
We greet the monarch-peasant. 

While Shenstone strained in feeble flights 

With Corydon and Phillis, — 
While Wolfe was climbing Abraham's heights 

To snatch the Bourbon lilies, — 
118 



Who heard the wailing infant's cry, 
The babe beneath the sheeling, 

Whose song to-night in every sky 
Will shake earth's starry ceiling, — 

Whose passion-breathing voice ascends 

And floats like incense o'er us, 
Whose ringing lay of friendship blends 

With labors anvil chorus? 

We love him, not for sweetest song, 

Though never tone so tender; 
We love him, even in his wrong, — 

His wasteful self-surrender. 

We praise him, not for gifts divine, — 
His Muse was born of woman, — 

His manhood breathes in every line, — 
Was ever heart more human? 

We love him, praise him, just for this: 

In every form and feature, 
Through wealth and want, through woe and 
bliss, 

He saw his fellow-creature! 

No soul could sink beneath his love, — 

Not even angel blasted; 
No mortal power could soar above 

The pride that all outlasted! 

Ay ! Heaven had set one living man 

Beyond the pedant's tether, — 
His virtues, frailties, He may scan, 

Who weighs them all together! 

I fling my pebble on the cairn 
Of him, though dead, undying; 
119 



Sweet Nature's nursling, bonniest bairn 
Beneath her daisies lying. 

The waning suns, the wasting globe, 
Shall spare the minstrel's story, — 

The centuries weave his purple robe, 
The mountain-mist of glory! 

— Oliver Wendell Holmes 



TO BURNS'S 'HIGHLAND MARY' 

O loved by him whom Scotland loves, 

Long loved, and honoured duly 
By all who love the bard who sang 

So sweetly and so truly ! 
In cultured dales his song prevails; 

Thrills o'er the eagle's aery — 
Has any caught that strain, nor sighed 

For Burns's 'Highland Mary'? 

I wandered on from hill to hill, 

I feared nor wind nor weather, 
For Burns beside me trode the moor, 

Beside me pressed the heather. 
I read his verse: his life — alas! 

O'er that dark shades extended: — 
With thee at last, and him in thee, 

My thoughts their wanderings ended. 

His golden hours of youth were thine; 

Those hours whose flight is fleetest 
Of all his songs to thee he gave 

The freshest and the sweetest. 
Ere ripe the fruit one branch he brake, 

All rich with bloom and blossom; 
120 



And shook its dews, its incense shook, 
Above thy brow and bosom. 

And when his Spring, alas, how soon! 

Had vanished, self-subverted, 
His Summer, like a god repulsed, 

Had from his gates departed; 
Beneath that evening star, once more, 

Star of his morn and even! 
To thee his suppliant hands he spread, 

And hailed his love 'in heaven.' 

And if his spirit in 'a waste 

Of shame' too oft was squandered, 
And if too oft his feet ill-starred 

In ways erroneous wandered; 
Yet still his spirit's spirit bathed 

In purity eternal; 
And all fair things through thee retained 

For him their aspect vernal. 
Nor less that tenderness remained 

Thy favouring love implanted; 
Compunctious pity, yearnings vague 

For love to earth not granted; 
Reserve with freedom, female grace 

Well matched with manly vigor, 
In songs where fancy twined her wreaths 

Round judgment's stalwart rigour. 

A mute but strong appeal was made 

To him by feeblest creatures: 
In his large heart had each a part 

That part had found in Natiire's. 
The wildered sheep, sagacious dog, 

Old horse reduced and crazy; 
The field-mouse by the plough upturned, 

And violated daisy. 
121 



In him there burned that passionate glow 

All Nature's soul and savour, 
Which gives its hue to every flower, 

To every fruit its flavour: 
Nor less the kindred power he felt; 

That love of all things human 
Whereof the fiery centre is 

That love man bears to woman. 

He sang the dignity of man, 

Sang woman's grace and goodness; 
Passed by the world's half-truths; her lies 

Pierced through with lance-like shrewdness: 
Upon life's broad highways he stood, 

And aped nor Greek nor Roman; 
But snatched from heaven Promethean fire 

To glorify things common. 

He sang of youth, he sang of age, 

Their joys, their griefs, their labours 
Felt with, not for, the people; hailed 

All Scotland's sons his neighbors: 
And therefore all repeat his verse, 

Hot youth, or greybeard steady, 
The boatman on Loch Etive's wave, 

The shepherd on Ben Ledi. 

He sang from love of song; his name 

Dunedin's cliff resounded: 
He left her, faithful to a fame 

On truth and nature founded : 
He sought true fame, not loud acclaim; 

Himself and Time he trusted: 
For laurels crackling in the flame 

His fine ear never lusted. 

He loved, and reason had to love 
The illustrious land that bore him: 
122 



Where'er he went, like heaven's broad tent 
A star-bright Past hung o'er him: 

Each isle had fenced a saint recluse, 
Each tower a hero dying; 

Down every mountain-gorge had rolled 
The flood of foemen flying. 

From age to age that land had paid 

No alien throne submission; 
For feudal faith had been her Law, 

And freedom her Tradition. 
Where frowned the rocks had Freedom smiled, 

Sung 'mid the shrill wind's whistle — 
So England prized her garden Rose, 

But Scotland loved her Thistle. 

Fair field alone the brave demand, 

And Scotland ne'er had lost it; 
And honest prove the hate and love 

To objects meet adjusted: 
Her will and way had ne'er been crossed 

In fatal contradiction; 
Nor loyalty to treason soured, 

Nor faith abused with fiction. 

Can song be false where hearts are sound? 

Weak doubts, away we fling them ! 
The land that breeds great men, great deeds, 

Shall ne 'er lack bards to sing them : 
That vigour, sense, and mutual truth 

Which baffled each invader, 
Shall fill her marts, and feed her arts, 

While peaceful olives shade her. 

Honour to Scotland and to Burns! 

In him she stands collected: 
A thousand streams one river make — 

Thus Genius, heaven-directed, 
123 



Conjoins all separate veins of power 

In one great soul-creation ; 
Thus blends a million men to make 

The poet of the nation. 

Be green for aye, green bank and brae 

Around Montgomery's Castle! 
Blow there, ye earliest flowers ! and there, 

Ye sweetest song-birds, nestle ! 
For there was ta'en that last farewell 

In hope, indulged how blindly; 
And there was given that long last gaze 

'That dwelt' on him 'sae kindly.' 

No word of thine recorded stands; 

Few words that hour were spoken: 
Two Bibles there were interchanged; 

And some slight love-gift broken: 
And there thy cold faint hands he pressed, 

Thy head by dew-drops misted; 
And kisses, ill-resisted first, 

At last were unresisted. 

Ah cease! — she died. He too is dead. 

Of all her girlish graces 
Perhaps one nameless lock remains: 

The rest stern Time effaces — 
Dust lost in dust. Not so: a bloom 

Is hers that ne'er can wither; 
And in that lay which lives for aye 

The twain live on together. 

— Aubrey De Vere 



124 



BURNS: AN ODE 

A fire of fierce and laughing light 
That clove the shuddering heart of night 
Leapt earthward, and the thunder's might 

That pants and yearns 
Made fitful music round its flight: 

And earth saw Burns. 

The joyous lightning found its voice 
And bade the heart of wrath rejoice 
And scorn uplift a song to voice 

The imperial hate 
That smote the God of base men's choice 

At God's own gate. 

Before the shrine of dawn, where through 
The lark rang rapture as she flew, 
It flashed and fired the darkling dew: 

And all that heard 
With love or loathing hailed anew 

A new day's word. 

The servants of the lord of hell, 

As though their lord had blessed them, fell 

Foaming at mouth for fear, so well 

They knew the lie 
Wherewith they sought to scan and spell 

The unsounded sky. 

And Calvin, night's prophetic bird, 
Out of his home in hell was heard 
Shrieking; and all the fens were stirred 

Whence plague is bred; 
Can God endure the scoffer's word? 

But God was dead. 

The God they made them in despite 
Of man and woman, love and light, 
U5 



Strong sundawn and the starry night, 

The lie supreme, 
Shot through with song, stood forth to sight 

A devil's dream. 

And he that bent the lyric bow 
And laid the lord of darkness low 
And bade the fire of laughter glow 

Across his grave, 
And bade the tides above it flow, 

Wave hurtling wave, 

Shall he not win from latter days 

More than his own could yield of praise? 

Ay, could the soveriegn singer's bays 

Forsake his brow, 
The warrior's, won on stormier ways, 

Still clasp it now. 

He loved, and sang of love: he laughed, 
And bade the cup whereout he quaffed 
Shine as a planet, fore and aft, 

And left and right, 
And keen as shoots the sun's first shaft 

Against the night. 

But love and wine were moon and sun 
For many a fame long since undone, 
And sorrow and joy have lost and won 

By stormy turns 
As many a singer's soul, if none 

More bright than Burns. 

And sweeter far in grief or mirth 
Have songs as glad and sad of birth 
Found voice to speak of wealth or dearth 

In joy of life: 
But never song took fire from earth 

More strong for strife. 
126 



The daisy by his ploughshare cleft, 
The lips of women loved and left, 
The griefs and joys that weave the weft 

Of human time, 
With craftsman's cunning, keen and deft, 

He carved in rhyme. 

But Chaucer's daisy shines a star 
Above his ploughshare's reach to mar, 
And mightier vision gave Dunbar 

More jrttenuous wing 
To hear around all sins that are 

Hell dance and sing. 

And when such pride and power of trust 
In song's high gift to arouse from dust 
Death, and transfigure love or lust 

Through smiles or tears 
In golden speech that takes no rust 

From cankering years, 

As never spake but once in one 

Strong star-crossed child of earth and sun, 

Villon, made music such as none 

May praise or blame, 
A crown of starrier flower was won 

Than Burns may claim. 

But never, since bright earth was born 
In rapture of the enkindling morn, 
Might godlike wrath and sunlike scorn 

That was and is 
And shall be while false weeds are worn 

Find word like his. 

Above the rude and radiant earth 
That heaves and glows from firth to firth 
In vale and mountain, bright in dearth 
And warm in wealth, 
127 



Which gave his fiery glory birth 
By chance and stealth, 

Above the storms of praise and blame 
That blur with mist his lustrous name, 
His thundrous laughter went and came, 

And lives and flies; 
The roar that follows on the flame 

When lightning dies. 

Earth, and the snow-dimmed heights of air, 

And water winding soft and fair 

Through still sweet places, bright and bare, 

By bent and byre, 
Taught him what hearts within them were: 

But his was fire. 

— Algernon Charles Swinburne 



128 



SIR WALTER SCOTT 
1771—1832 




SIR WALTER SCOTT 



TO SIR WALTER SCOTT 

ON ACCIDENTALLY MEETING AND PARTING WITH SIR 
WALTER SCOTT IN LONDON, MAY, 1828 

Since last I saw that countenance so mild 
Slow-stealing age, and a faint line of care, 
Had gently touched, methought, some features there; 

Yet looked the man as placid as a child, 

And the same voice, — whilst mingled with the throng, 
Unknowing, and unknown, we passed along, — 

That voice, a share of the brief time beguiled ! 

That voice I ne'er may hear again, I sighed 

At parting, — whereso'er our various way, 

In this great world, — but from the banks of Tweed, 

As slowly sink the shades of eventide, 
Oh! I shall hear the music of his reed, 

Far off, and thinking of that voice, shall say, 

A blessing rest upon thy locks of grey! 

— William Lisle Bowles 

(From) 

THE QUEEN'S WAKE 

(conclusion) 

The day arrived — blest be the day, 
Walter the Abbot came that way! — 
The sacred relic met his view — 
Ah! well the pledge of Heaven he knew! 
He screwed the chords, he tried a strain; 
'Twas wild — he tuned and tried again, 
Then poured the numbers bold and free, 
The ancient magic melody. 

The land was charmed to list his lays; 
It knew the harp of ancient days. 
The Border chiefs, that long had been 
In sepulchres unhearsed and green, 
131 



Passed from their mouldy vaults away, 
In armour red and stern array, 
And by their moonlight halls were seen, 
In visor, helm, and habergeon. 
Even fairies sought our land again, 
So powerful was the magic strain. 

—James Hogg 

ON THE DEPARTURE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT 
FROM ABBOTSFORD FOR NAPLES 

A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain, 
Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light 
Engendered, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height: 
Spirits of Power, assembled there, complain 
For kindred Power departing from their sight; 
While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain, 
Saddens his voice again, and yet again. 
Lift up your hearts, ye Mourners ! for the might 
Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes; 
Blessings and prayers in nobler retinue 
Than sceptered king or laurelled conqueror knows, 
Follow this wondrous Potentate. Be true. 
Ye winds of ocean, and the midland sea, 
Wafting your Charge to soft Parthenope! 

— William Wordsworth 



{From) 



YARROW REVISITED 

For Thou, upon a hundred streams, 

By tales of love and sorrow, 
Of faithful love, undaunted truth, 

Hath shed the power of Yarrow; 
And streams unknown, hills yet unseen, 

Wherever they invite Thee, 
At parent Nature's grateful call, 

With gladness must requite Thee. 
132 



A gracious welcome shall be thine, 

Such looks of love and honor 
As thy own Yarrow gave to me 

When first I gazed upon her; 
Beheld what I had feared to see, 

Unwilling to surrender 
Dreams treasured up from early days, 

The holy and the tender. 

— William Wordsworth 

(From) 

ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 

Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan, 
The golden-crested haughty Marmion, 
Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight, 
Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight, 
The gibbet or the field prepared to grace; 
A mighty mixture of the great and base. 
And think'st thou, Scott ! by vain conceit perchance, 
On public taste to foist thy stale romance, 
Though Murray with his Miller may combine 
To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line? 
No! when the sons of song descend to trade, 
Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade, 
Let such forego the poet's sacred name, 
Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame: 
Still for stern Mammon may they toil in vain! 
And sadly gaze on gold they cannot gain! 
Such be their meed, such still the just reward 
Of prostituted muse and hireling bard! 
For this we spurn Apollo's vernal son, 
And bid a long "good night to Marmion." 

These are the themes that claim our plaudits now; 
These are the Bards to whom the muse must bow; 
While Milton, Dry den, Pope, alike forgot, 
Resign their hallow'd bays to Walter Scott. 

— Lord Byron 
133 



INTRODUCTION TO LAYS AND LEGENDS 
OF ANCIENT GREECE 

Like a fair country stretching wide 
With woods on woods in leafy pride 

And fields of golden grain, 
And moors with purple heather glowing, 
And healthful breezes bravely blowing, 

Spreads Scott his vast domain. 

— John Stuart Blackie 

THE SCOTT MONUMENT, PRINCESS 
STREET, EDINBURGH 

Here sits he throned, where men and gods behold 
His domelike brow — a good man simply great; 
Here in this highway proud, that arrow-straight 
Cleaves at one stroke the new world from the old. 
On this side, Commerce, Fashion, Progress,. Gold; 
On that, the Castle Hill, the Canongate, 
A thousand years of war and love and hate 
There palpably upstanding fierce and bold. 
Here sits he throned; beneath him, full and fast, 
The tides of Modern Life impetuous run. 
O Scotland, was it well and meetly done? 
For see! he sits with back turned on the Past — 
He whose imperial edict bade it last 
While yon grey ramparts kindle to the sun. 

— William Watson 



134 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 

1770-1850 




WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 



TO A GENTLEMAN 

(william wordsworth) 
composed on the night after the recitation of 
a poem on the growth of an individual mind. 

Friend of the wise ! and Teacher of the Good ! 
Into my heart have I received that Lay 
More than historic, that prophetic Lay 
Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright) 
Of the foundations and the building up 
Of a Human Spirit thou hast dared to tell 
What may be told, to the understanding mind 
Revealable; and what within the mind 
By vital breathings secret as the soul 
Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart 
Thoughts all too deep for words ! — 

Theme hard as high! 
Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears 
(The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth), 
Of tides obedient to external force, 
And currents self-determined, as might seem, 
Or by some inner Power; of moments awful, 
Now in thy inner life, and now abroad, 
When power streamed from thee, and thy soul 

received 
The light reflected, as a light bestowed — 
Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth, 
Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought 
Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens 
Native or outland, lakes and famous hills! 
Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars 
Were rising; or by secret mountain-streams, 
The guides and the companions of thy way! 
Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense 
Distending wide, and man beloved as man. 
Where France in all her towns lay vibrating 
Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst 
Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud 

137 



Is visible, or shadow on the main. 

For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded, 

Amid the tremor of a realm aglow, 

Amid a mighty nation jubilant, 

When from the general heart of human kind 

Hope sprang forth like a full-born Deity ! 

— Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down, 

So summoned homeward, thenceforth calm 

and sure 
From the dread watch-tower of man's abso- 
lute self, 
With light unwaning on her eyes, to look 
Far on — herself a glory to behold, 
The Angel of the vision! Then (last strain) 
Of Duty, chosen Laws controlling choice, 
Action and joy! — An orphic song indeed, 
A song divine of high and passionate thoughts 
To their own music chaunted! 

great Bard ! 
Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air, 
With stedfast eye I viewed thee in the choir 
Of ever-enduring men. The truly great 
Have all one age, and from one visible space 
Shed influence ! They, both in power and act, 
Are permanent, and Time is not with them, 
Save as it worketh for them, they in it. 
Nor less a sacred Roll, than those of old, 
And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame 
Among the archives of mankind, thy work 
Makes audible a linked lay of Truth, 
Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay, 
Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes ! 
Ah! as I listened with a heart forlorn, 
The pulses of my being beat anew: 
And even as life returns upon the drowned, 
Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains — 
Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe 
Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart; 
138 



And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye 

of hope; 
And hope that scarce would know itself from fear; 
Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain, 
And genius given, and knowledge won in vain; 
And all which I had culled in woodwalks wild, 
And all which patient toil had reared, and all, 
Commune with thee had opened out — but flowers 
Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier, 
In the same coffin, for the self -same grave! 

That way no more ! and ill beseems it me, 
Who came a welcomer in herald's guise, 
Singing of glory, and futurity, 
To wander back on such unhealthful road, 
Plucking the poisons of self -harm! And ill 
Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths 
Strew'd before thy advancing! 

Nor do thou, 
Sage Bard! impair the memory of that hour 
Of thy communion with my nobler mind 
By pity or grief, already felt too long! 
Nor let my words import more blame than 

needs. 
The tumult rose and ceased : for Peace is nigh 
Where wisdom's voice has found a listening 

heart. 
Amid the howl of more than wintry storms, 
The halcyon hears the voice of vernal hours 
Already on the wing. 

Eve following eve, 
Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home 
Is sweetest ! moments for their own sake hailed 
And more desired, more precious, for thy 

song, 
In silence listening, like a devout child, 
My soul lay passive, by thy various strain 
139 



Driven as in surges now beneath the stars, 
With momentary stars of my own birth, 
Fair constellated foam, still darting off 
Into the darkness; now a tranquil sea, 
Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the 
moon. 

And when — O Friend! my comforter and guide ! 
Strong in thyself, and powerful to give 

strength! — 
Thy long sustained Song finally closed, 
And thy deep voice had ceased — yet thou 

thyself 
Wert still before my eyes, and round us both 
That happy vision of beloved faces — 
Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its 

close 
I sate, my being blended in one thought 
(Thought was it? or aspiration? or resolve?) 
Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound — 
And when I rose, I found myself in prayer. 

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge 



TO WORDSWORTH 

Those who have laid the harp aside 
And turn'd to idler things, 
From very restlessness have tried 

The loose and dusty strings, 
And, catching back some favourite strain, 
Run with it o'er the chords again. 

But Memory is not a Muse, 
O Wordsworth! though 'tis said 

They all descend from her, and use 
To haunt her fountain-head: 

That other men should work for me 

In the rich mines of Poesie, 
140 



Pleases me better than the toil 
Of smoothing under hardened hand, 

With attic emery and oil, 

The shining point for Wisdom's wand, 

Like those thou temperest 'mid the rills 

Descending from thy native hills. 

Without his governance, in vain 
Manhood is strong, and youth is bold. 

If oftentimes the o'erpiled strain 
Clogs in the furnace, and grows cold 

Beneath his pinions deep and frore, 

And swells and melts and flows no more. 

That is because the heat beneath 
Pants in its cavern poorly fed, 

Life springs not from the couch of Death, 
Nor Muse nor Grace can raise the dead; 

Unturn'd then let the mass remain, 

Intractable to sun or rain. 

A marsh where only flat leaves lie, 
And showing but the broken sky, 
Too surely is the sweetest lay 
That wins the ear and wastes the day, 
Where youthful Fancy pouts alone 
And lets not Wisdom touch her zone. 



He who would build his fame up high, 
The rule and plummet must apply. 
Nor say, "I'll do what I have plann'd," 
Before he try if loam or sand 
Be still remaining in the place 
Delved for each polished pillar's base. 
With skilful eye and fit device 
Thou raisest every edifice, 
Whether in sheltered vale it stand, 
141 



Or overlook the Dardan strand, 
Amid the cypresses that mourn 
Laodameia's love forlorn. 

We both have run o'er half the space, 
Listed for mortal's earthly race; 
We both have crost life's fervid line, 
And other stars before us shine: 
May they be bright and prosperous 
As those that have been stars for us! 
Our course by Milton's light was sped, 
And Shakespeare shining overhead: 
Chatting on deck was Dryden too, 
The Bacon of the rhyming crew; 
None ever crossed our mystic sea 
More richly stored with thought than he; 
Tho' never tender nor sublime, 
He wrestles with and conquers Time. 
To learn my lore on Chaucer's knee, 
I left much prouder company; 
Thee gentle Spencer fondly led, 
But me he mostly sent to bed. 

I wish them every joy above 

That highly blessed spirits prove, 

Save one: and that too shall be theirs, 

But after many rolling years, 

When 'mid their light thy light appears. 

— Walter Savage Landor 



142 



THE LAST FRUIT OFF AN OLD TREE 

XLVII 

We know a poet rich in thought, profuse 
In bounty; but his grain wants winnowing; 
There hangs much chaff about it, barndoor dust, 
Cobwebs, small insects: it might make a loaf, 
A good large loaf, of household bread; but flour 
Must be well bolted for a dainty roll. 

— Walter Savage Landor 



(From) 
ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 

Next comes the dull desciple of thy school, 
That mild apostate from poetic rule, 
The simple Wordsworth, framer of a lay 
As soft as evening in his favourite May, 
Who warns his friend "to shake off toil and trouble, 
And quit his books, for fear of growing double;" 
Who, both by precept and example, shows 
That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose; 
Convincing all, by demonstration plain, 
Poetic souls delight in prose insane; 
And Christmas stories tortured into rhyme 
Contain the essence of the true sublime. 
Thus, when he tells the tale of Betty Foy, 
The idiot mother of "an idiot boy;" 
A moon-struck, silly lad, who lost his way, 
And, like his bard, confounded night with day; 
So close on each pathetic part he dwells, 
And each adventure so sublimely tells, 
That all who view the "idiot in his glory" 
Conceive the bard the hero of the story. 

— Lord Byron 

143 



TO WORDSWORTH 

Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know 
That things depart which never may return: 
Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first 

glow, 
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn. 
These common woes I feel. One loss is mine 
Which thou too feePst, yet I alone deplore. 
Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine 
On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar: 
Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood 
Above the blind and battling multitude: 
In honoured poverty thy voice did weave 
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty, — 
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, 
Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be. 

— Percy Bysshe Shelley 

TO WORDSWORTH 

Thine is a strain to read among the hills, 
The old and full of voices, — by the source 

Of some free stream, whose gladdening presence fills 
The solitude with sound; for in its course 

Even such as thy deep song, that seems a part 

Of those high scenes, a fountain from their heart. 

Or its calm spirit fitly may be taken 

To the still breast in sunny garden bowers, 

Where vernal winds each tree's low tones awaken, 
And bud and bell with changes mark the hours. 

There let thy thoughts be with me, while the day 

Sinks with a golden and serene decay. 

Or by some hearth where happy faces meet, 
When night hath hushed the woods, with all 
their birds, 
There, from some gentle voice, that lay were sweet 
144 



As antique music, linked with household words; 
While in pleased murmurs woman's lip might move, 
And the raised eye of childhood shine in love. 

Or where the shadows of dark solemn yews 
Brood silently o'er some lone burial-ground, 

Thy verse hath power that brightly might diffuse 
A breath, a kindling, as of spring, around; 

From its own glow of hope and courage high, 
And steadfast faith's victorious constancy. 

True bard and holy! — thou art e'en as one 
Who, by some secret gift of soul or eye, 

In every spot beneath the smiling sun, 

Sees where the springs of living waters he: 

Unseen awhile they sleep — till, touched by thee, 

Bright healthful waves flow forth, to each glad 
wanderer free. 

— Felicia Dorothea Hemans 



TO WORDSWORTH 

There have been poets that in verse display 
The elemental forms of human passions: 
Poets have been, to whom the fickle fashions 
And all the wilful humours of the day 
Have furnished matter for a polished lay: 
And many are the smooth elaborate tribe 
Who, emulous of thee, the shape describe, 
And fain would every shifting hue pourtray 
Of restless Nature. But, thou mighty Seer! 
'Tis thine to celebrate the thoughts that make 
The life of souls, the truths for whose sweet sake 
We to ourselves and to our God are dear. 
Of Nature's inner shrine thou art the priest, 
Where most she works when we perceive her least. 

— Hartley Coleridge 
145 



WORDSWORTH 

(written on a blank leaf of his memoirs) 

Dear friends, who read the world aright, 
And in its common forms discern 

A beauty and a harmony 
The many never learn! 

Kindred in soul of him who found 
In simple flower and leaf and stone 

The impulse of the sweetest lays 
Our Saxon tongue has known, — 

Accept this record of a life 

As sweet and pure, as calm and good, 
As a long day of blandest June, 

In green field and in wood. 

How welcome to our ears, long pained 
By strife of sect and party noise, 

The brook-like murmur of his song 
Of nature's simple joys! 

The violet by its mossy stone, 
The primrose by the river's brim, 

And chance-sown daffodil, have found 
Immortal life through him. 

The sunrise on his breezy lake, 

The rosy tints his sunset brought, 

World-seen, are gladdening all the vales 
And mountain-peaks of thought. 

Art builds on sand; the works of pride 

And human passion change and fall; 
But that which shares the life of God 
With Him surviveth all. 

— John Greenleaf Whittier 
146 



ON A PORTRAIT OF WORDSWORTH 
BY B. R. HAYDON 

Wordsworth upon Helvellyn ! Let the cloud 
Ebb audibly along the mountain wind, 
Then break against the rock, and show be- 
hind 
The lowland valleys floating up to crowd 
The sense with beauty. He with forehead 

bowed 
And humble-lidded eyes, as one inclined 
Before the sovran thought of his own mind, 
And very meek with inspirations proud, 
Takes here his rightful place as poet-priest 
By the high altar, singing prayer and prayer 
To the higher Heavens. A noble vision free 
Our Haydon's hand has flung out from the mist : 
No portrait this, with academic air ! 
This is the poet and his poetry. 

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning 



AFTER A LECTURE ON WORDSWORTH 

Come, spread your wings, as I spread mine, 
And leave the crowded hall 

For where the eyes of twilight shine 
O'er evening's western wall. 

These are the pleasant Berkshire hills, 

Each with its leafy crown; 
Hark! from their sides a thousand rills 

Come singing sweetly down. 

A thousand rills; they leap and shine, 
Strained through the shadowy nooks, 

Till, clasped in many a gathering twine, 
They swell a hundred brooks. 
147 



A hundred brooks, and still they run 
With ripple, shade, and gleam, 

Till, clustering all their braids in one, 
They flow a single stream. 

A bracelet spun from mountain mist, 

A silvery sash unwound, 
With ox-bow curve and sinous twist 

It writhes to reach the Sound. 

This is my bark, — a pygmy's ship: 

Beneath a child it rolls; 
Fear not, — one body makes it dip, 

But not a thousand souls. 

Float we the grassy banks between; 

Without an oar we glide; 
The meadows, drest in living green, 

Unroll on either side. 

— Come, take the book we love so well, 

And let us read and dream 
We see whate'er its pages tell, 

And sail an English stream. 

Up to the clouds the lark has sprung, 

Still trilling as he flies; 
The linnet sings as there he sung; 

The unseen cuckoo cries. 

And daisies strew the banks along, 

And yellow kingcups shine, 
With cowslips, and a primrose throng, 

And humble celandine. 

Ah foolish dream! when Nature nursed 

Her daughter in the west, 
The fount was drained that opened first; 

She bared the other breast. 
148 



On the young planet's orient shore 

Her morning hand she tried; 
Then turned the broad medallion o'er 

And stamped the sunset side. 

Take what she gives, her pine's tall stem 
Her elm with hanging spray; 

She wears her mountain diadem 
Still in her own proud way. 

Look on the forest's ancient kings, 
The hemlock's towering pride: 

Yon trunk had thrice a hundred rings, 
And fell before it died. 

Nor think that Nature saves her bloom 
And slights our grassy plain; 

For us she wears her court costume, — 
Look on its broidered train; 

The lily with the sprinkled dots, 
Brands of the noontide beam; 

The cardinal, and the blood-red spots, 
Its double in the stream, 

As if some wounded eagle's breast, 
Slow throbbing o'er the plain, 

Had left its airy path impressed 
In drops of scarlet rain. 

And hark! and hark! the woodland rings; 

There thrilled the thrush's soul; 
And look ! that flash of flamy wings, — 

The fire-plumed oriole ! 

Above, the hen-hawk swims and swoops, 
Flung from the bright, blue sky; 

Below, the robin hops, and whoops 
His piercing, Indian cry. 
149 



Beauty runs virgin in the woods 

Robed in her rustic green, 
And oft a longing thought intrudes, 

As if we might have seen 

Her every finger's every joint 

Ringed with some golden line, 
Poet whom Nature did anoint! 

Had our wild home been thine. 

Yet think not so; Old England's blood 

Runs warm in English veins; 
But wafted o'er the icy flood 

Its better life remains : 

Our children know each wild wood smell, 

The bayberry and the fern, 
The man who does not know them well 

Is all too old to learn. 

Be patient! On the breathing page 
Still pants our hurried past; 

Pilgrim and soldier, saint and sage, — 
The poet comes the last! 

Though still the lark- voiced matins ring 
The world has known so long; 

The wood-thrush of the West shall sing 
Earth's last sweet even-song! 

— Oliver Wendell Holmes 



150 



{From) 

MEMORIAL VERSES 

Wordsworth 

******** Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice! 
For never has such soothing voice 
Been to your shadowy world convey 'd, 
Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade 
Heard the clear song of Orpheus come 
Through Hades, and the mournful gloom. 
Wordsworth has gone from us — and ye, 
Ah, may ye feel his voice as we! 
He too upon a wintry clime 
Had fallen — on this iron time 
Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears. 
He found us when the age had bound 
Our souls in its benumbing round; 
He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears. 
He laid us as we lay at birth 
On the cool flowery lap of earth, 
Smiles broke from us and we had ease; 
The hills were round us, and the breeze 
Went o'er the sun-lit fields again; 
Our foreheads felt the wind and rain. 
Our youth return'd; for there was shed 
On spirits that had long been dead, 
Spirits dried up and closely furl'd, 
The freshness of the early world. 
Ah! since dark days still bring to light 
Man's prudence and man's fiery might, 
Time may restore us in his course 
Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force; 
But where will Europe's latter hour 
Again find Wordsworth's healing power? 
Others will teach us how to dare, 
And against fear our breast to steel; 
Others will strengthen us to bear — 
151 



But who, ah! who, will make us feel 
The cloud of mortal destiny, 
Others will front it fearlessly — 
But who, like him, will put it by? 

Keep fresh the grass upon his grave, 
O Rotha, with thy living wave! 
Sing him thy best! for few or none 
Hears thy voice right, now he is gone. 

— Matthew Arnold 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 
1845 

Gentle and grave, in simple dress, 
And features by keen mountain air 
Moulded to solemn ruggedness, 
The man we came to see sat there: 
Not apt for speech, nor quickly stirr'd 
Unless when heart to heart replied; 
A bearing equally remov'd 
From vain display or sullen pride. 

The sinewy frame yet spoke of one 
Known to the hillsides: on his head 
Some five-and-seventy winters gone 
Their crown of perfect white had shed: — 
As snow-tipp'd summits toward the sun 
In calm of lonely radiance press, 
Touch'd by the broadening light of death 
With a serener pensiveness. 

O crown of venerable age! 
O brighter crown of well-spent years! 
The bard, the patriot, and the sage, 
The heart that never bow'd to fears! 
That was an age of soaring souls; 
152 



Yet none with a more liberal scope 
Survey 'd the sphere of human things; 
None with such manliness of hope. 

Others, perchance, as keenly felt, 

As musically sang as he; 

To Nature as devoutly knelt, 

Or toil'd to serve humanity: 

But none with those ethereal notes, 

That star-like sweep of self-control; 

The insight into worlds unseen, 

The lucid sanity of soul. 

The fever of our fretful life, 

The autumn poison of the air, 

The soul with its own self at strife, 

He saw and felt, but could not share: 

With eye made clear by pureness, pierced 

The life of Man and Nature through; 

And read the heart of common things, 

Till new seem'd old, and old was new. 

To his own self not always just, 
Bound in the bonds that all men share, — 
Confess the failings as we must, 
The lion's mark is always there! 
Nor any song so pure, so great 
Since his, who closed the sightless eyes, 
Our Homer of the war in Heaven, 
To wake in his own Paradise. 

O blaring trumpets of the world! 
O glories, in their budding sere! 
O flaunting roll of Fame unfurl'd! 
Here was the king — the hero here! 
It was a strength and joy for life 
In that great presence once to be; 
That on the boy he gently smil'd, 
That those white hands were laid on me. 

— Francis Turner Palgrave 
153 



THE POETRY OF WORDSWORTH 

A breath of the mountains, fresh born in the 

regions majestic, 
That look with their eye-daring summits deep 

into the sky. 
The voice of great Nature; sublime with her 
lofty conceptions, 
Yet earnest and simple as any sweet child of the 
green lowly vale. 

— George Meredith 

TO WORDSWORTH 

Thro' clouds and darkness to meridian height 
Of glory, thou hast upward climbed, and now 
In empyrean blue, with cloudless brow 
Look'st o'er a prospect clear and infinite — 
Rejoicing, by rejoicing in, thy light! 
The vapours, which at first would not allow 
Full view of thee, are gone, we know not how; 
Absorbed into thy splendor, and thy might! 
And now, great spirit, thou unto thy close 
Art hastening, and trails of glory make 
The heavens gorgeous for thy repose — 
Thou hast made day for all men to partake, 
And having thought of others and their woes, 
Shalt be remembered now for thy own sake. 

— Henry Ellison 

WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE 

I 

The old rude church, with bare, bald tower, is here; 

Beneath its shadow high-born Rotha flows; 
Rotha, remembering well who slumbers near, 

And with cool murmur lulling his repose. 
154 



Rotha, remembering well who slumbers near. 

His hills, his lakes, his streams are with him yet. 
Surely the heart that read her own heart clear 

Nature forgets not soon: 'tis we forget. 

We that with vagrant soul his fixity 

Have slighted; faithless, done his deep faith 
wrong; 

Left him for poorer loves, and bowed the knee 
To misbegotten strange new gods of song. 

Yet, led by hollow ghost or beckoning elf 
Far from her homestead to the desert bourn, 

The vagrant soul returning to herself 

Wearily wise, must needs to him return. 

To him and to the powers that with him dwell : — 
Inflowings that divulged not whence they came; 

And that secluded spirit unknowable, 

The mystery we make darker with a name; 

The Somewhat which we name but cannot know, 
Ev'n as we name a star and only see 

His quenchless flashings forth, which ever show 
And ever hide him, and which are not he. 

II 

Poet who sleepest by this wandering wave! 

When thou wast born, what birth-gift hadst 
thou then? 
To thee what wealth was that the Immortals gave, 

The wealth thou gavest in thy turn to men? 

Not Milton's keen, translunar music thine; 

Not Shakespeare's cloudless, boundless 

human view; 

Not Shelley's flush of rose on peaks divine; 

Nor yet the wizard twilight Coleridge knew. 

155 



What hadst thou that could make so large amends 
For all thou hadst not and thy peers possessed. 

Motion and fire, swift means to radiant ends? — 
Thou hadst, for weary feet, the gift of rest. 

From Shelley's dazzling glow or thunderous haze, 
From Byron's tempest-anger, tempest-mirth, 

Men turned to thee and found — not blast and 
blaze, 
Tumult of tottering heavens, but peace on earth. 

Nor peace that grows by Lethe, scentless flower, 
There in white languors to decline and cease; 

But peace whose names are also rapture, power, 
Clear sight, and love: for these are parts of 
peace. 

Ill 

I hear it vouched the Muse is with us still; — 
If less divinely frenzied than of yore, 

In lieu of feelings she has wondrous skill 
To simulate emotion felt no more. 

Not such the authentic Presence pure, that made 
This valley vocal in the great days gone! — 

In his great days, while yet the spring-time played 
About him, and the mighty morning shone. 

No word-mosaic artificer, he sang 
A lofty song of lowly weal and dole. 

Right from the heart, right to the heart it sprang, 
Or from the soul leapt instant to the soul. 

He felt the charm of childhood, grace of youth, 
Grandeur of age, insisting to be sung. 

The impassioned argument was simple truth 

Half-wondering at its own melodious tongue. 

156 



Impassioned? ay, to the song's ecstatic core! 

But far removed were clangour, storm and feud; 
For plenteous health was his, exceeding store 

Of joy, and an impassioned qiuetude. 

IV 

A hundred years ere he to manhood came, 
Song from celestial heights had wandered down, 

Put off her robe of sunlight, dew and flame, 
And donned a modish dress to charm the Town. 

Thenceforth she but festooned the porch of things; 

Apt at life's lore, incurious what life meant. 
Dextrous of hand, she struck her lute's few 
strings; 

Ignobly perfect, barrenly content. 

Unflushed with ardour and unblanched with awe, 
Her lips in profitless derision curled, 

She saw with dull emotion — if she saw — 
The vision of the glory of the world. 

The human masque she watched, with dreamless 
eyes 

In whose clear shallows lurked no trembling shade: 
The stars, unkenned by her, might set and rise, 

Unmarked by her, the daisies bloom and fade. 

The age grew sated with her sterile wit. 

Herself waxed weary on her loveless throne. 
Men felt life's tide, the sweep and surge of it, 

And craved a living voice, a natural tone. 

For none the less, though song was but half true, 
The world lay common, one abounding theme. 

Man joyed and wept, and fate was ever new, 
And love was sweet, life real, death no dream. 
157 



In sad stern verse the rugged scholar-sage 
Bemoaned his toil unvalued, youth uncheered. 

His numbers wore the vesture of the age, 
But, 'neath it beating, the great heart was 
heard. 

From dewy pastures, uplands sweet with thyme, 
A virgin breeze freshened the jaded day. 

It wafted Collins' lonely vesper-chime, 
It breathed abroad the frugal note of Gray. 

It fluttered here and there, nor swept in vain 
The dusty haunts where futile echoes dwell,— 

Then, in a cadence soft as summer rain, 

And sad from Auburn voiceless, drooped and fell. 

It drooped and fell, and one 'neath northern skies, 
With southern heart, who tilled his father's 
field, 
Found poesy a-dying, bade her rise 

And touch quick nature's hem and go forth 
healed. 

On life's broad plain the ploughman's conquering 
share 

Upturned the fallow lands of truth anew, 
And o'er the formal garden's trim parterre 

The peasant's team a ruthless furrow drew. 

Bright was his going forth, but clouds ere long 
Whelmed him; in gloom his radiance set, and 
those 

Twin morning stars of the new century's song, 
Those morning stars that sang together, rose. 

In elvish speech the Dreamer told his tale 
Of marvellous oceans swept by fateful wings. — 

The Seer strayed not from earth's human pale, 

But the mysterious face of common things. 

158 



He mirrored as the moon in Rydal Mere 
Is mirrored, when the breathless night hangs 
blue: 

Strangely remote she seems and wondrous near, 
And by some nameless difference born anew. 



Peace — Peace — and rest! Ah, how the lyre is 
loth, 

Or powerless now, to give what all men seek! 
Either it deadens with ignoble sloth 

Or deafens with shrill tumult, loudly weak. 

Where is the singer whose large notes and clear 
Can heal and arm and plenish and sustain? 

Lo, one with empty music floods the ear, 
And one, the heart refreshing, tires the brain. 

And idly tuneful, the loquacious throng 
Flutter and twitter, prodigal of time, 

And little masters make a toy of song 

Till grave men weary of the sound of rhyme. 

And some go prankt in faded antique dress, 
Abhorring to be hale and glad and free; 

And some parade a conscious naturalness, 
The scholar's not the child's simplicity. 

Enough; — and wisest who from words forbear. 

The kindly river rails not as it glides; 
And suave and charitable, the winning air 

Chides not at all, or only him who chides. 

VI 

Nature! we storm thine ear with choric notes. 
Thou answerest through the calm great nights 
and days, 

159 



"Laud me who will: not tuneless are your throats; 
Yet if ye paused I should not miss the praise. " 

We falter, half rebuked, and sing again. 

We chant thy desertness and haggard gloom, 
Or with thy splendid wrath inflate the strain, 

Or touch it with thy colour and perfume. 

One, his melodious blood aflame for thee, 
Wooed with fierce lust, his hot heart world-de- 
filed. 
One, with the upward eye of infancy, 

Looked in thy face, and felt himself thy 
child. 

Thee he approached without distrust or dread- 
Beheld thee throned, an awful queen, above- 
Climbed to thy lap and merely laid his head 
Against thy warm wild heart of mother-love. 

He heard that vast heart beating — thou didst press 
Thy child so close, and lov'dst him unaware. 

Thy beauty gladdened him; yet he scarce less 
Had loved thee, had he never found thee fair! 

For thou wast not as legendary lands 

To which with curious eyes and ears we roam. 

Nor wast thou as a fane 'mid solemn sands, 
Where palmers halt at evening. Thou wast 
home. 

And here, at home, still bides he; but he sleeps; 

Not to be wakened even at thy word; 
Though we, vague dreamers, dream he somewhere 
keeps 
An ear still open to thy voice still heard, — 
160 



Thy voice, as heretofore, about him blown, 
For ever blown about his silence now; 

Thy voice, though deeper, yet so like his own 
That almost, when he sang, we deemed 'twas 
thou! 

VII 

Behind Helm Crag and Silver Howe the sheen 
Of the retreating day is less and less. 

Soon will the lordlier summits, here unseen, 
Gather the night about their nakedness. 

The half -heard bleat of sheep comes from the hill, 
Faint sounds of childish play are in the air. 

The river murmurs past. All else is still. 
The very graves seem stiller than they were. 

Afar though nation be on nation hurled, 
And life with toil and ancient pain depressed, 

Here one may scarce believe the whole wide world 
Is not at peace, and all man's heart at rest. 

Rest! 'twas the gift he gave; and peace! the 
shade 
He spread, for spirits fevered with the sun. 
To him his bounties are come back — here laid 
In rest, in peace, his labor nobly done. 

— William Watson 

TO JAMES BROMLEY 

with " Wordsworth's grave" 

Ere vandal lords with lust of gold accurst 
Deface each hallowed hillside we revere — 

Ere cities in their million-throated thirst 
Menace each sacred mere — 
161 



Let us give thanks because one nook hath been 

Unflooded yet by desecration's wave, 
The little churchyard in the valley green 

That holds our Wordsworth's grave. 
'Twas there I plucked these elegiac blooms, 

There where he rests 'mid comrades fit and 
few, 
And thence I bring this growth of classic tombs, 

An offering, friend, to you — 
You who have loved like me his simple themes, 

Loved his sincere large accent nobly plain, 
And loved the land whose mountains 
and whose streams 

Are lovelier for his strain. 

It may be that his manly chant, beside 

More dainty numbers, seems a rustic tune: 
It may be, thought has broadened since he died 

Upon the century's noon; 
It may be that we can no longer share 

The faith which from his fathers he 
received; 
It may be that our doom is to despair 

Where he with joy believed; — 

Enough that there is none since risen who sings 

A song so gotten of the immediate soul, 
So instant from the vital fount of things 

Which is our source and goal; 
And though at touch of later hands there 
float 

More artful tones than from his lyre he drew, 
Ages may pass ere trills another note 

So sweet, so great, so true. 

— William Watson 



168 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
1772—1834 




SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 



FROM THE PRELUDE 
XIV-277-301 

* * * * O capacious Soul! 

Placed on this earth to love and understand, 

And from thy presence shed the light of love, 

Shall I be mute, ere thou be spoken of? 

Thy kindred influence to my heart of hearts 

Did also find its way. Thus fear relaxed 

Her overweening grasp; thus thoughts and things 

In the self-haunting spirit learned to take 

More rational proportions; mystery, 

The incumbent mystery of sense and soul, 

Of life and death, time and eternity, 

Admitted more habitually a mild 

Interposition — a serene delight 

In closelier gathering cares, such as become 

A human creature, howso'er endowed, 

Poet, or destined for a humbler name; 

And so the deep enthusiastic joy, 

The rapture of the hallelujah sent 

From all that breathes and is, was chastened, 

stemmed 
And balanced by pathetic truth, by trust 
In hopeful reason, leaning on the stay 
Of Providence; and in reverence for duty, 
Here, if need be, struggling with storms, and there 
Strewing in peace life's humblest ground with herbs, 
At every season green, sweet at all hours. 

— William Wobdswobth 



165 



(From) 
ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 

Shall gentle Coleridge pass unnoticed here. 
To turgid ode and tumid stanza dear? 
Though themes of innocence amuse him best, 
Yet still obscurity's a welcome guest. 
If Inspiration should her aid refuse 
To him who takes a pixy for a muse, 
Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass 
The bard who soars to elegise an ass; 
So well the subject suits his noble mind, 
He brays the laureate of the long-eared kind. 

— Lord Byron 



ON READING COLERIDGE'S EPITAPH 
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF 

Spirit! so oft in radiant freedom soaring 
High through seraphic mysteries unconfined, 
And oft, a diver through the deep of mind, 
Its caverns, far below its waves, exploring; 
And oft such strains of breezy music pouring, 
As, with the floating sweetness of their sighs, 
Could still all fevers of the heart, restoring 
Awhile that freshness left in Paradise; 
Say, of those glorious wanderings what the goal? 
What the rich fruitage to man's kindred soul 
From wealth of thine bequeathed? strong, and 

high, 
And sceptered intellect! thy goal confest 
Was the Redeemer's cross — thy last bequest 
One lesson breathing thence profound humility! 

— Felicia Dorothea Hemans 



166 



COLERIDGE 

His eye saw all things in the symmetry 
Of true and just proportion; and his ear 

That inner tone could hear 
Which flows beneath the outer: therefore he 
Was as a mighty shell, fashioning all 
The winds to one rich sound, ample and musical. 

Yet dim that eye with gazing upon heaven; 
Wearied with vigils, and the frequent birth 

Of tears when turned to earth: 
Therefore, though farthest ken to him was given, 
Near things escaped him : through them — as a gem 
Diaphonous — he saw; and therefore saw not them. 

Moreover, men whom sovereign wisdom teaches 
That God not less in humblest forms abides 

Than those the great veil hides, 
Such men a tremor of bright reverence reaches; 
And thus, confronted ever with high things, 
Like cherubim they hide their eyes between their 
wings. 

No loftier, purer soul than his hath ever 
With awe revolved the planetary page, 

From infancy to age, 
Of Knowledge; sedulous and proud to give her 
The whole of his great heart for her own sake; 
For what she is; not what she does, or what can 
make. 

And mighty Voices from afar came to him: 
Converse of trumpets held by cloudy forms, 

And speech of choral storms: 
Spirits of night and noontide bent to woo him: 
He stood the while, lonely and desolate 
As Adam, when he ruled a world, yet found no mate. 

167 



His loftiest thoughts were but like palms 

uplifted, 
Aspiring, yet in supplicating guise; 

His sweetest songs were sighs: 
Adown Lethean streams his spirit drifted, 
Under Elysian shades from poppied bank 
With Amaranths massed in dark luxuriance dank. 
Coleridge, farewell! That great and grave 

transition 
Which may not Priest, or King, or Conqueror spare, 

Nor yet a Babe can bear, 
Has come to thee. Through life a goodly vision 
Was thine; and time it was thy rest to take. 
Soft be the sound ordained thy sleep to break — 
When thou art waking, wake me, for thy Master's 

sake! 

— Aubrey De Vere 

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 

His Soul fared forth (as from the deep home-grove 
The father-songster plies the hour-long quest,) 
To feed his soul-brood hungering in the nest; 

But his warm Heart, the mother-bird, above 

Their callow fledgling progeny still hove 

With tented roof of wings and fostering breast 
Till the Soul fed the soul-brood. Richly blest 

From Heaven their growth, whose food was Human 
Love. 

Yet ah! Like desert pools that show the stars 
Once in long leagues, — even such the scarce- 
snatched hours 
Which deepening pain left to his lordliest powers : — 
Heaven lost through spider-trammelled prison-bars. 
Six years, from sixty saved! Yet kindling skies 
Own them, a beacon to our centuries. 

— Dante Gabriel Rossetti 
168 



THE POETRY OF COLERIDGE 

A brook glancing under green leaves, self-delighting, 
exulting, 
And full of a gurgling melody ever renewed — 
Renewed thro' all changes of Heaven, unceasing 
in sunlight, 
Unceasing in moonlight, but hushed in the beams 
of the holier orb. 

— George Meredith 



COLERIDGE AT CHAMOUNY 

I would I knew what ever happy stone 
Of all these dateless records, gray and vast, 
Keeps silent memory of that sunrise lone 
When, lost to earth, the soul of Coleridge passed 
From earthly time to one immortal hour; 
There thought's faint stir woke echoes of the mind 
That broke to thunder tones of mightier power 
From depths and heights mysterious, undefined; 
As when the soft snows, drifting from the rock, 
Rouse the wild clamor of the avalanche shock. 

Who may not envy him that awful morn 

When marvelling at his risen self he trod, 

And thoughts intense as pain were fiercely born, 

Till rose his soul in one great psalm to God. 

A man to-morrow weak as are the worst, 

A man to whom all depths, all heights belong, 

Now with too bitter hours of weakness cursed, 

Now winged with vigor, as a giant strong 

To take our groping hearts with tender hand, 

And set them surely where God's angels stand. 

On peaks of lofty contemplation raised, 
Such as shall never see earth's common son, 
169 



High as the snowy altar which he praised, 
An hour's creative ecstasy he won. 
Yet, in this frenzy of the lifted soul 
Mocked him the nothingness of human speech, 
When through his being visions past control 
Swept, strong as mountain streams. — Alas! To 

reach 
Words equal- winged as thought to none is given, 
To none of earth to speak the tongue of heaven. 

The eagle-flight of genius gladness hath, 
And joy is ever with its victor swoop 
Through sun and storm. Companionless its path 
In earthly realms, and, when its pinions droop, 
Faint memories only of the heavenly sun, 
Dim records of ethereal space it brings 
To show how haughty was the height it won, 
To prove what freedom had its airy wings. 
This is the curse of genius, that earth's night 
Dims the proud glory of its heavenward flight. 

— S. Weir Mitchell 



COLERIDGE 

I see thee pine like her in golden story 
Who, in her prison, woke and saw, one day, 
The gates thrown open — saw the sunbeam's play, 
With only a web 'tween her and summer's glory; 
Who, when that web — so frail, so transitory 
It broke before her breath — had fallen away, 
Saw other webs and others rise for aye 
Which kept her prison'd till her hair was hoary. 
Those songs half -sung that yet were all-divine — 
That woke Romance, the queen, to reign afresh — 
Had been but preludes from that lyre of thine, 
Could thy rare spirit's wings have pierced the mesh 
170 



Spun by the wizard who compels the flesh, 
But lets the poet see how heav'n can shine. 

— Theodore Watts 



LINES IN A FLYLEAF OF "CHRISTABEL" 

Inhospitably hast thou entertained, 
O Poet, us the bidden to thy board, 
Whom in mid-feast, and while our thousand mouths 
Are one laudation of the festal cheer, 
Thou from thy table dost dismiss, unfilled. 
Yet loudlier thee than many a lavish host 
We praise, and oftener thy repast half-served 
Than many a stintless banquet, prodigally 
Through satiate hours prolonged; nor praise less 

well 
Because with tongues thou hast not cloyed, and lips 
That mourn the parsimony of affluent souls, 
And mix the lamentation with the laud. 

— William Watson 



171 



ROBERT SOUTHEY 

1774—1843 




ROBERT SOUTHEY 



INSCRIPTION 

FOR A MONUMENT IN CROSTHWAITE 
CHURCH, IN THE VALE OF KESWICK 

Ye vales and hills whose beauty hither drew 
The poet's steps, and fixed him here, on you 
His eyes have closed ! And ye, lov,d books, no more 
Shall Southey feed upon your precious lore, 
To works that ne'er shall forfeit their renown, 
Adding immortal labours of his own — 
Whether he traced historic truth, with zeal 
For the State's guidance, or the Church's weal, 
Or Fancy, disciplined by studious art, 
Inform'd his pen, or wisdom of the heart, 
Or judgments sanctioned in the Patriot's mind 
By reverence for the rights of all mankind. 
Wide were his aims, yet in no human breast 
Could private feelings meet for holier rest. 
His joys, his griefs, have vanished like a cloud 
From Skiddaw's top ; but he to heaven was vowed 
Through his industrious life, and Christian faith 
Calmed in his soul the fear of change and death. 

— William Wordsworth 



ON SOUTHEY'S BIRTHDAY, Nov. 4 
CXXI 

No angel borne on whiter wing 

Hath visited the sons of men, 
Teaching the song they ought to sing 

And guiding right the unsteady pen. 
Recorded not on earth alone, 

O Southey! is thy natal day, 
But there where stands the choral throne 

Show us thy light and point the way. 

— Walter Savage Landor 
175 



TO SOUTHEY 

Indweller of a peaceful vale, 
Ravaged erewhile by white-hair 'd Dane; 
Rare architect of many a wondrous tale, 
Which, till Helvellyn's head lie prostrate, 
shall remain! 

From Armo's side I hear thy Derwent flow, 
And see methinks the lake below 
Reflect thy graceful progeny, more fair 
And radiant than the purest waters are, 
Even when gurgling in their joy among 
The bright and blessed throng, 
Whom on her arm recline 
The beauteous Proserpine 
With tenderest regretful gaze, 
Thinking of Enna's yellow field, surveys. 

Alas! that snows are shed 

Upon thy laurel'd head, 
Hurtled by many cares and many wrongs! 

Malignity lets none 

Approach the Delphic throne; 
A hundred lane-fed curs bark down Fame's 

hundred tongues. 
But this is in the night, when men are slow 

To raise their eyes, when high and low, 
The scarlet and the colourless, are one: 

Soon sleep unbars his noiseless prison, 

And active minds again are risen; 
Where are the curs? dream-bound, and whimpering 
in the sun. 

At fife's or lyre's or tabor's sound 
The dance of youth, O Southey, runs not round 
But closes at the bottom of the room 
Amid the falling dust and deepening gloom, 
176 



Where the weary sit them down, 
And Beauty too unbraids, and waits a lovelier 
crown. 

We hurry to the river we must cross, 
And swifter downward every footstep 
wends; 
Happy, who reach it ere they count the loss 
Of half their faculties and half their 
friends ! 
When we are come to it, the stream 
Is not so dreary as they deem 
Who look on it from haunts too dear; 
The weak from Pleasure's baths feel most its chil- 
ling air. 
No firmer breast than thine hath Heaven 

To poet sage or hero given: 
No heart more tender, none more just 

To that He largely placed in trust: 
Therefore shalt thou, whatever date 
Of years be thine, with soul elate 
Rise up before the eternal throne, 
And hear in God's own voice "Well done." 

Not, were that submarine 
Gem-lighted city mine, 
Wherein my name, engraven by thy hand, 
Above the royal gleam of blazonry shall 
stand; 
Not, were all Syracuse 
Pour'd forth before my muse, 
With Hiero's cars and steeds, and Pindar's 

lyre 
Brightening the path with more than solar fire, 
Could I, as would beseem, requite the praise 
Showered upon my low head from thy most 
lofty lays. 

— Walter Savage Landor 
177 



(From) 
ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 

The time has been, when yet the muse was young, 
When Homer swept the lyre, and Maro sung, 
An Epic scarce ten centuries could claim, 
While awe-struck nations hailed the magic name: 
The work of each immortal bard appears 
The single wonder of a thousand years. 
Empires have mouldered from the face of earth, 
Tongues have expired with those who gave them birth, 
Without the glory such a strain can give, 
As even in ruin bids the language live. 
Not so with us, though minor bards, content, 
On one great work a life of labour spent: 
With eagle pinion soaring to the skies, 
Behold the ballad-monger Sou they rise! 
To him let Camoens, Milton, Tasso yield, 
Whose annual strains, like armies, take the field. 
First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance, 
The scourge of England and the boast of France! 
Though burnt by wicked Bedford for a witch, 
Behold her statue placed in glory's niche; 
Her fetters burst, and just released from prison, 
A|;virgin phoenix from her ashes risen. 
Next see tremendous Thalaba come on, 
Arabia's monstrous, wild and wondrous son; 
Domdaniel's dread destroyer, who o'erthrew 
More mad magicians than the world e'er knew. 
Immortal hero! all thy foes o'ercome, 
For ever reign — the rival of Tom Thumb! 
Since startled metre fled before thy face, 
Well wert thou doomed the last of all thy race! 
Well might triumphant genii bear thee hence, 
Illustrious conqueror of common sense! 
Now, last and greatest, Madoc spreads his sails, 
Cacique in Mexico, and Prince in Wales; 
Tells us strange tales, as other travellers do, 

178 



More old than Mandeville's, and not so true. 
Oh! Southey! Southey! cease thy varied song! 
A bard may chaunt too often and too long: 
As thou art strong in verse, in mercy, spare! 
A fourth, alas! were more than we could bear. 
But if, in spite of all the world can say, 
Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary way; 
If still in Berkeley ballads most uncivil, 
Thou wilt devote old women to the devil, 
The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue: 
"God help thee," Southey, and thy readers too. 

— Lord Byron 

TO ROBERT SOUTHEY 

NEITHER THE ESQUIRE, THE LAUREATE, THE LL. D., BUT THE 
GOOD MAN, THE MERRY MAN, THE POET, AND THE DOCTOR 

He was not born beneath the Cambrian hills; 

No mountain breezes lull'd his infant slumbers; 
Loud rattling cars, and penny-dropping tills, 

And blended murmurs of conglomerate numbers, 
Were the chief sounds that baby Robert heard; 
The pecking sparrow, his sole household bird. 

Great Bristol was his nest and natal town, 
And not till he had cast his baby frock 

He felt the liberal air of Durdum Down, 
Or look'd on Avon from St. Vincent's rock, 

Whence many a bark was seen in trim array, 

Bound on bad quest to hapless Africa. 

'Tis hard to say what might have been his lot, 
If born with Nature from the first to dwell; 

Yet am I prone to guess that he would not 
Have conn'd or known, or loved her half so well. 

She was a stranger to his opening eyes, 

Clad with the charm of still renew'd surprise. 

179 



And finding little in the daily round 

To fashion fancy from the things of sense, 

His love of kin was all the more profound; 
Not wide in surface, but in act intense, 

Affection still a dutiful reality, 

The ground and law, and soul of all morality. 

Yet keeping still his little heart at home, 

He wander'd with his mind in realms remote, 

Made playmates of the Fairy, Sylph, and Gnome, 
And knew each Giant, Knight, and Wight of note 

Whate'er of wonderful the East and North, 

Darkly commingling, gender'd and brought forth. 

Sweet thought he found, and noble, in the story 
Of the Wehr-Wolf and sweet Red Ridinghood, 

Shudder'd at feast of Ogre, raw and gory, 
And watched the Sleeping Beauty in the wood. 

— Hartley Colerdige 



THE POETRY OF SOUTHEY 

Keen as an eagle whose flight toward the dim 

empyrean 
Fearless of toil or fatigue ever royally wends! 
Vast in the cloud-coloured robes of the balm- 
breathing Orient 
Lo! the grand Epic advances, unfolding the humanest 
truth. 

— George Meredith 



180 



LORD BYRON 

1788—1824 




LORD BYRON 



SONNET TO BYRON 

[I am afraid these verses will not please you, but] 

If I esteemed you less, Envy would kill 

Pleasure, and leave to Wonder and Despair 

The ministration of the thoughts that fill 

The mind which, like a worm whose life may share 

A portion of the unapproachable, 

Marks your creations rise as fast and fair 

As perfect worlds at the Creator's will. 

But such is my regard that nor your power 

To soar above the heights where others [climb], 

Nor fame, that shadow of the unborn hour 

Cast from the envious future on the time, 

Move one regret for his unhonored name 

Who dares these words : — the worm beneath the sod 

May lift itself in homage of the God. 

— Percy Bysshe Shelley 

FRAGMENT: TO BYRON 

O mighty mind, in whose deep stream this age 

Shakes like a reed in the unheeding storm, 

Why dost thou curb not thine own sacred rage? 

— Percy Bysshe Shelley 

BYRON 

Byron! how sweetly sad thy melody! 
Attuning still the soul to tenderness, 
As if soft Pity, with unusual stress, 
Had touch'd her plaintive lute, and thou being by, 
Hadst caught the tones, nor suffer'd them to die. 
O'ershadowing sorrow doth not make thee less 
Delightful: thou thy griefs dost dress 
With a bright halo, shining beamily, 
As when a cloud the golden moon doth veil, 

Its sides are tinged with a resplendent glow, 
183 



Through the dark robe oft amber rays prevail, 
And like fair veins in sable marble flow. 

Still warble, dying swan! still tell the tale, 

The enchanting tale, the tale of pleasing woe. 

— John Keats 

STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF LORD BYRON 

" — / am not now 
That which I have been. " — Childe Harold 

He was, and is not! Graecia's trembling shore, 
Sighing through all her palmy groves, shall tell 
That Harold's pilgrimage at last is o'er — 
Mute the impassioned tongue, and tuneful shell, 
That erst was wont in noblest strains to swell — 
Hush'd the proud shouts that rode Aegaea's wave! 
For lo! the great Deliv'rer breathes farewell! 
Gives to the world his mem'ry and a grave — 
Expiring in the land he only lived to save! 

Mourn, Hellas, mourn! and o'er thy widowed brow, 
For aye, the cypress wreath of sorrow twine; 
And in thy new-formed beauty, desolate, throw 
The fresh-cull'd flowers on his sepulchral shrine. 
Yes ! let that heart whose fervor was all thine, 
In consecrated urn lamented be! 
That generous heart where genius thrill'd divine, 
Hath spent its last most glorious throb for thee — 
Then sank amid the storm that made thy children free! 

Britannia's Poet! Graecia's hero, sleeps! 
And freedom, bending o'er the breathless clay, 
Lifts up her voice, and in her anguish weeps! 
For us a night hath clouded o'er our day, 
And hushed the lips that breath'd our fairest lay. 
Alas! and must the British lyre resound 
A requiem, while the spirit wings away 
184 



Of him who on its strings such music found, 
And taught its startling chords to give so sweet a sound ! 

The theme grows sadder — but my soul shall find 
A language in these tears ! No more — no more ! 
Soon, midst the shriekings of the tossing wind, 
The "dark blue depths" he sang of, shall have bore 
Our all of Byron to his native shore! 
His grave is thick with voices — to the ear 
Murm'ring an awful tale of greatness o'er; 
But Memory strives with Death, and lingering near, 
Shall consecrate the dust of Harold's lonely bier! 
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning 



LORD BYRON AND THE ARMENIAN 
CONVENT 

And lived he here? And could this sweet green isle 

Volcanic stuff to his hot heart afford, 
That he might nurse his wrath, and vent his bile 

On gods and men, this proud, mistempered lord? 
Alas ! poor lord, to this soft leafy nest 

Where only pure and heavenly thoughts should dwell, 
He brought, and bore and cherished in his breast, 

A home-bred devil, and a native hell. 
Unhappy lord! If this be genius, then 

Grant me, O God, a muse with sober sweep, 
That I may eat and drink with common men, 

Joy with their joys, and with their weeping weep: 
Better to chirp mild loves in lowly bower, 
Than soar through stormy skies, with hatred for my 
dower. 

— John Stewart Blackie 



185 



MEMORIAL VERSES 

APRIL, 1850 

When Byron's eyes were shut in death, 
We bow'd our head and held our breath. 
He taught us little; but our soul 
Had felt him like the thunder's roll. 
With shivering heart the strife we saw 
Of passion with eternal law 
And yet with reverential awe 
We watched the font of fiery life 
Which served for that Titanic strife. 

— Matthew Arnold 

BYRON 

A hundred years, 't is writ, — O presage vain! — 
Earth wills her offspring life, ere one complete 

His term, and rest from travail, and be fain 
To lay him down in natural death and sweet. 

What of her child whose swift divining soul 
With triple fervor burns the torch apace, 

And in one radiant third compacts the whole 
Ethereal flame that lights him on his race? 

Ay, what of him who to the winds upheld 

A star-like brand, with pride and joy and tears, 

And lived in that fleet course from youth to eld, 
Count them who will, his century of years? 

The Power that arches heaven's orbway round 
Gave to this planet's brood its soul of fire, 

Its heart of passion, — and for life unbound 
By chain or creed the measureless desire; 

Gave to one poet these, and manifold 

High thoughts, beyond our lesser mortal share, — 
186 



Gave dreams of beauty, yes, and with a mould 
The antique world had worshipped made him fair; 

Then touched his lips with music, — lit his brow, 
Even as a fane upon the sunward hill, 

For strength, gave scorn, the pride that would not bow, 
The glorious weapon of a dauntless will. 

But that the surcharged spirit — a vapor pent 
In beetling crags — a torrent barriered long — 

A wind 'gainst heaven's four winds imminent — 
Might memorably vent its noble song, 

Each soaring gift was fretted with a band 
That deadlier clung which way he fain would press : 

His were an adverse age, a sordid land, 
Gauging his heart by their own littleness; 

Blind guides! the fiery spirit scorned their curb, 
And Byron's love and gladness, — such the wise 

Of ministrants whom evil times perturb, — 
To wrath and melancholy changed their guise. 

Yet this was he whose swift imaginings 

Engirt fair Liberty from clime to clime, — 

From Alp to ocean with an eagle's wings 
Pursued her flight, in Harold's lofty rime. 

Where the mind's freedom was not, could not be, 
That bigot soil he rendered to disdain, 

And sought, like Omar in his revelry, 
At least the semblance of a joy to gain. 

Laughter was at his beck, and wisdom's ruth 
Sore-learned from fierce experiences that test 

Life's masquerade, the carnival of youth, 
The world of man. Then Folly lost her zest, 
187 



Yet left undimmed (her valediction sung 
With Juan's smiles and tears) his natal ray 

Of genius inextinguishably young, — 

An Eos through those mists proclaiming day. 

How then, when to his ear came Hellas' cry, 
He shred the garlands of the wild night's feast, 

And rose a chief, to lead — alas, to die 

And leave men mourning for that music ceased! 

America! When nations for thy knell 

Listened, one prophet oracled thy part: 

Now, in thy morn of strength, remember well 
The bard whose chant foretold thee as thou art. 

Sky, mount, and forest, and high-sounding main, 
The storm-cloud's vortex, splendor of the day, 

Gloom of the night, — with these abide his strain, — 
And these are thine, though he has passed away; 

Their elemental force had roused to might 

Great Nature's child in this her realm supreme, — 

From their commingling he had guessed aright 
The plentitude of all we know or dream. 

Read thou aright his vision and his song. 
That this enfranchised spirit of the spheres 

May know his name henceforth shall take no wrong, 
Outbroadening still yon ocean and these years! 

— Edmund Clarence Stedman 

BYRON'S GRAVE 

Nay! Byron, nay! not under where we tread, 
Dumb weight of stone, lies thine imperial head! 
Into no vault lethargic, dark and dank, 
The splendid strength of thy swift spirit sank: 
No narrow church in precincts cold and grey 

188 



Confines the plume, that loved to breast the day: 

Thy self-consuming, scathing heart of flame 

Was quenched to feed no silent coffin's shame! 

A fierce, glad fire in buoyant hearts art thou, 

A radiance in auroral spirits now; 

A stormy wind, an ever-sounding ocean, 

A life, a power, a never- wearying motion! 

Or deadly gloom, or terrible despair, 

An earthquake mockery of strong Creeds that were 

Assured possessions of calm earth and sky, 

Where doom-distraught pale souls took sanctuary, 

As in strong temples. The same blocks shall build, 

Iconoclast! the edifice you spilled, 

More durable, more fair: O scourge of God, 

It was Himself who urged thee on thy road; 

And thou, Don Juan, Harold, Manfred, Cain, 

Song-crowned within the world's young heart shall reign! 

Where'er we hear embroiled lashed ocean roar, 

Or thunder echoing among heights all hoar, 

Brother! thy mighty measure heightens theirs, 

While Freedom on her rent red banner bears 

The deathless names of many a victory won, 

Inspired by thy death-shattering clarion! 

In Love's immortal firmament are set 

Twin stars of Romeo and Juliet, 

And their companions young eyes discover 

In Cycladean Haidee with her lover. 

May all the devastating force be spent? 
Or all thy godlike energies lie shent? 
Nay! thou art founded in the strength Divine: 
The soul's immense eternity is thine! 
Profound Beneficence absorbs thy power, 
While ages tend the long-maturing flower: 
Our Sun himself, one tempest of wild flame, 
For source of joy, and very life men claim 
In mellowing corn, in bird, and bloom of spring, 
In leaping lambs, and lovers dallying. 
Byron! the whirlwinds rended not in vain; 

189 



Aloof behold they nourish and sustain! 
In the far end we shall account them gain. 

— Roden Noel 

TO LORD BYRON 

MY LORD, 

(Do you remember how Leigh Hunt 
Enraged you once by writing My dear Byron?) 

Books have their fates, — as mortals have who punt, 
And yours have entered on an age of iron. 

Critics there be who think your satin blunt, 
Your pathos, fudge: such perils must environ 
Poets who in their time were quite the rage, 
Though now there's not a soul to turn their page. 

Yes, there is much dispute about your worth, 
And much is said which you might like to know 

By modern poets here upon the earth, 

Where poets live, and love each other so; 

And, in Elysium, it may move your mirth 
To hear of bards that pitch your praises low, 

Though there be some that for your credit stickle, 

As — Glorious Mat, — and not inglorious Nichol. 

This kind of writing is my pet aversion. 

I hate the slang, I hate the personalities, 
I loathe the aimless, reckless, loose dispersion, 

Of every rhyme that in the singer's wallet is, 
I hate it as you hated the Excursion, 

But, while no man a hero to his valet is, 
The hero's still the model; I indite 
The kind of rhymes that Byron oft would write. 

There's a Swiss critic whom I cannot rhyme to, 
One Scherer, dry as sawdust, grim and prim. 

Of him there's much to say, if I had time to 
Concern myself in any wise with him. 
190 



He seems to hate the heights he cannot climb to, 
He thinks your poetry a coxcomb's whim, 

A good deal of his sawdust he has spilt on 

Shakespeare, and Moliere, and you, and Milton. 

Ay, much his temper is like Vivien's mood, 

Which found not Galahad pure, nor Lancelot brave; 

Cold as a hailstorm on an April wood, 
He buries poets in an icy grave, 

His Essays — he of the Genevan hood! 

Nothing so good but better doth he crave. 

So stupid and so solemn in his spite 

He dares to print that Moliere could not write! 

Enough of these excursions; I was saying 
That half our English Bards are turned Reviewers, 

And Arnold was discussing and assaying 

The weight and value of that work of yours, 

Examining and testing it and weighing, 

And proved, the gems are pure, the gold endures. 

While Swinburne cries with an exceeding joy, 

The stones are paste, and half the gold, alloy. 

In Byron, Arnold finds the greatest force, 

Poetic, in this later age of ours 
His song, a torrent from a mountain source, 

Clear as the crystal, singing with the showers, 
Sweeps to the sea in unrestricted course 

Through banks o'erhung with rocks and sweet with 
flowers; 
None of your brooks that modestly meander, 
But swift as Awe along the Pass of Brander. 

And when our century has clomb its crest, 
And backward gazes o'er the plains of Time, 

And counts its harvest, yours is still the best, 
The richest garner in the field of rhyme 

(The metaphoric mixture, 't is contest, 

191 



Is all my own, and is not quite sublime). 
But fame's not yours alone; you must divide all 
The plums and pudding with the Bard of Rydal! 

Wordsworth and Byron, these the lordly names 
And these the gods to whom most incense burns. 

4 Absurd!' cries Swinburne, and in anger flames, 
And in an Aeschylean fury spurns 

With impious foot your altar, and exclaims 
And wreathes his laurels on the golden urns 

Where Coleridge's and Shelley's ashes lie, 

Deaf to the din and heedless of the cry. 

For Byron (Swinburne shouts) has never woven 
One honest thread of life within his song; 

As Offenbach is to divine Beethoven 
So Byron is to Shelley (This is strong!), 

And on Parnassus' peak, divinely cloven, 
He may not stand, or stands by cruel wrong; 

For Byron's rank (the Examiner has reckoned) 

Is in the third class or a feeble second. 

'A Bernesque poet' at the very most, 
And never earnest save in politics — 

The Pegasus that he was wont to boast 

A blundering, floundering hackney, full of tricks, 

A beast that must be driven to the post 

By whips and spurs and oaths and kicks and sticks, 

A gasping, ranting, broken- winded brute, 

That any judge of Pegasi would shoot; 

In sooth, a half-bred Pegasus, and far gone 
In spavin, curb, and half a hundred woes. 

And Byron's style is 'jolter-headed jargon;' 
His verse is 'only bearable in prose.' 

So living poets write of those that are gone, 
And o'er the Eagle thus the Bantam crows: 

And Swinburne ends where Verisopht began, 

By owning you 'a very clever man.' 

192 



Or rather does not end: he still must utter 
A quantity of the unkindest things. 

Ah! were you here, I marvel, would you flutter 
O'er such a foe the tempest of your wings? 

'Tis 'rant and cant and glare and splash and splutter' 
That rend the modest air when Byron sings. 

There Swinburne stops: a critic rather fiery. 

Animis caelestibus tantaene irae? 

But whether he or Arnold in the right is, 
Long is the argument, the quarrel long; 

Non nobis est to settle tantas lites; 

No poet I, to judge of right or wrong: 

But of all things I always think a fight is 

The most unpleasant in the lists of song; 

When Marsyas of old was flayed, Apollo 

Set an example which we need not follow. 

The fashion changes! Maidens do not wear, 
As once they wore, in necklaces and lockets 

A curl ambrosial of Lord Byron's hair; 

'Don Juan' is not always in our pockets — 

Nay, a New Writer's readers do not care 

Much for your verse, but are inclined to mock its 
Manners and morals. Ay, and most young ladies 

To yours prefer the 'Epic' called 'of Hades !' 

I do not blame them; I'm inclined to think 
That with the reigning taste 't is vain to quarrel, 

And Burns might teach his votaries to drink, 
And Byron never meant to make them moral. 

You yet have lovers true, who will not shrink 
From lauding you and giving you the laurel; 

The Germans too, those men of blood and iron, 

Of all our poets chiefly swear by Byron. 

Farewell, thou Titan fairer than the gods! 

Farewell, farewell, thou swift and lovely spirit, 
Thou splendid warrior with the world at odds, 

193 



Unpraised, unpraisable, beyond thy merit; 
Chased, like Orestes, by the furies' rods, 

Like him at length thy peace dost thou inherit; 
Beholding whom, men think how fairer far 
Than all the steadfast stars the wandering star!* 

— Andrew Lang 



TO BYRON 

He with a strenuous voice of vibrant tone, 
Aeolian in its sweep and majesty, 
Untrammeled as the heavens, and as free, 
In passionate throbbings from his bosom's throne 

Flung Song from the Aegeans classic zone 
Sublime in its impetuosity, — 
Like to the voice of the eternal sea 
Filled with a wild unfathomable moan. 

O Dust! far from the Minster by the Thames, 
Reft of the oriel and the organ roll, 
Unniched among thy land's illustrious names, 

Where is he, living, who can touch thy goal? 
Whose words, as thine, within the file of Fames' 
Resplendent troop, so melt, so move the soul! 

— Lloyd Mifflin 

*Mr. Swinburne's and Mr. Arnold's diverse views of Byron will 
be found in the Selections by Mr. Arnold and in the Nineteenth Century. 



194 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
1792—1822 




PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 



AFTER A LECTURE ON SHELLEY 

One broad, white sail in Spezzia's treacherous bay; 

On comes the blast; too daring bark, beware! 
The cloud has clasped her; lo! it melts away; 

The wide, waste waters, but no sail is there. 

Morning: a woman looking on the sea; 

Midnight: with lamps the long veranda burns; 
Come, wandering sail, they watch, they burn for thee! 

Suns come and go, alas! no bark returns. 

And feet are thronging on the pebbly sands, 
And torches flaring in the weedy caves, 

Where'er the waters lay with icy hands 

The shapes uplifted from their coral graves. 

Vainly they seek; the idle quest is o'er; 

The coarse, dark women, with their hanging locks, 
And lean, wild children gather from the shore 

To the black hovels bedded in the rocks. 

But Love still prayed, with agonizing wail, 
"One, one last look, ye heaving waters, yield!" 

Till Ocean, clashing in his jointed mail, 
Raised the pale burden on his level shield. 

Slow from the shore the sullen waves retire; 

His form a nobler element shall claim; 
Nature baptized him in ethereal fire, 

And Death shall crown him with a wreath of flame. 

Fade, mortal semblance, never to return; 

Swift is the change with thy crimson shroud; 
Seal the white ashes in the peaceful urn; 

All else has risen in yon silvery cloud. 

Sleep where thy gentle Adonais lies, 
Whose open page lay on thy dying heart, 
197 



Both in the smile of those blue-vaulted skies, 
Earth's fairest dome of all divinest art. 

Breathe for his wandering soul one passing sigh, 
O happier Christian, while thine eye grows dim, — 

In all the mansions of the house on high, 
Say not that Mercy has not one for him! 

— Oliver Wendell Holmes 

(From) 

PAULINE 

Sun-treader, life and light be thine forever! 
Thou art gone from us; years go by and spring 
Gladdens and the young earth is beautiful, 
Yet thy songs come not, other bards arise, 
But none like thee: they stand, thy majesties, 
Like mighty works which tell some spirit there 
Hath sat regardless of neglect and scorn, 
Till, its long task completed, it hath risen 
And left us, never to return, and all 
Rush in to peer and praise when all in vain. 
The air seems bright with thy past presence yet, 
But thou art still for me as thou hast been 
When I have stood with thee as on a throne 
With all thy dim creations gathered round 
Like mountains, and I felt of mould like them, 
And with them creatures of my own were mixed, 
Like things half-lived, catching and giving life. 
But thou art still for me who have adored 
Though single, panting but to hear thy name 
Which I believed a spell to me alone, 
Scarce deeming thou wast as a star to men! 
As one should worship long a sacred spring 
Scarce worth a moth's flitting, which long grasses cross, 
And one small tree embowers droopingly — 
Joying to see some wandering insect won 
To live in its few rushes, or some locust 

198 



To pasture on its boughs, or some wild bird 
Stoop for its freshness from the trackless air: 
And then should find it but the fountain-head, 
Long lost, of some great river washing towns 
And towers, and seeing old woods which will live 
But by its banks untrod of human foot, 
Which, when the great sun sinks, lie quivering 
In light as some thing lieth half of life 
Before God's foot, waiting a wondrous change; 
Then girt with rocks which seek to turn or stay- 
Its course in vain, for it does ever spread 
Like a sea's arm as it goes rolling on, 
Being the pulse of some great country — so 
Wast thou to me, and art thou to the world! 
And I, perchance, half feel a strange regret 
That I am not what I have been to thee: 
Like a girl one has silently loved long 
In her first loneliness in some retreat, 
When, late emerged, all gaze and glow to view 
Her fresh eyes and soft hair and lips which bloom 
Like a mountain berry: doubtless it is sweet 
To see her thus adored, but there have been 
Moments when all the world was in our praise, 
Sweeter than any pride of after hours. 
Yet, sun-treader, all hail! From my heart's heart 
I bid thee hail! E'en in my wildest dreams, 
I proudly feel I would have thrown to dust 
The wreaths of fame which seemed o'erhanging me, 
To see thee for a moment as thou art. 
And if thou livest, if thou lovest, spirit! 
Remember me who set this final seal 
To wandering thought — that one so pure as thou 
Could never die. Remember me who flung 
All honor from my soul, yet paused and said, 
"There is one spark of love remaining yet, 
For I have naught in common with him, shapes 
Which followed him avoid me, and foul forms 
Seek me, which ne'er could fasten on his mind; 

199 



And though I feel how low I am to him, 

Yet I aim not even to catch a tone 

Of harmonies he called profusely up; 

So, one gleam still remains, although the last." 

Remember me who praise thee e'en with tears, 

For never more shall I walk calm with thee; 

Thy sweet imaginings are as an air, 

A melody some wondrous singer sings, 

Which, though it haunt men oft in the still eve, 

They dream not to essay; yet it no less 

But more is honored. I was thine in shame, 

And now when all thy proud renown is out, 

I am a watcher whose eyes have grown dim 

With looking for some star which breaks on him 

Altered and worn and weak and full of tears. 

— Robert Browning 



ODE TO SHELLEY 



Why art thou dead? Upon the hills once more 

The golden mist of waning Autumn lies; 
The slow-pulsed billows wash along the shore, 

And phantom isles are floating in the skies. 
They wait for thee: a spirit in the sand 

Hushes, expectant for thy coming tread; 
The light wind pants to lift thy trembling hair; 
Inward, the silent land 

Lies with its mournful wood; — why art thou dead, 
When Earth demands that thou shalt call her fair? 



II 

Why art thou dead? I too demand thy song, 
To speak the language yet denied to mine, 

200 



Twin-doomed with thee, to feel the scorn of Wrong, 
To worship Beauty as a thing divine! 

Thou art afar: wilt thou not soon return 
To tell me that which thou hast never told? 

To clasp my throbbing hand, and, by the shore 
Or dewy mountain-fern, 
Pour out thy heart as to a friend of old, 

Touched with a twilight sadness? Nevermore. 

Ill 

I could have told thee all the sylvan joy 

Of trackless woods; the meadows far apart, 
Within whose fragrant grass, a lonely boy, 

I thought of God; the trumpet at my heart, 
When on bleak mountains roared the midnight storm, 

And I was bathed in lightning, broad and grand : 
Oh, more than all, with soft and reverent breath 
And forehead flushing warm, 

I would have led thee through the summer land 
Of early Love, and past my dreams of Death! 

IV 

In thee, Immortal Brother! had I found 

That Voice of Earth, that fails my feebler lines: 
The awful speech of Rome's sepulchral ground; 

The dusky hymn of Vallombrossa's pines! 
From thee the noise of Ocean would have taken 

A grand defiance round the moveless shores, 
And vocal grown the Mountain's silent head: 
Canst thou not yet awaken 

Beneath the funeral cypress? Earth implores 
Thy presence for her son; — why art thou dead? 

V 

I do but rave: for it is better thus, 

Were once thy starry nature given to mine, 
In the one life which would encircle us 

My voice would melt, my soul be lost in thine. 

201 



Better to bear the far sublimer pain 

Of Thought that has not ripened into speech, 
To hear in silence Truth and Beauty sing 
Divinely to the brain; 
For thus the Poet at the last shall reach 
His own soul's voice, nor crave a brother's string. 

— Bayard Taylor 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLY 

(inscription for the couch, still preserved, 
on which he passed the last night of his life) 

'Twixt those twin worlds, — the world of Sleep, which 
gave 
No dream to warm, — the tidal world of Death, 
Which the earth's sea, as the earth, replenisheth, — 

Shelley, Song's orient sun, to breast the wave, 

Rose from this couch that morn. Ah! did he brave 
Only the sea? — or did man's deed of hell 
Engulph his bark 'mid mists impenetrable? * * * 

No eye discerned, nor any power might save. 

When that mist cleared, O Shelley! what dread veil 

Was rent for thee, to whom far-darkling Truth 

Reigned sovereign guide through thy brief ageless 

youth? 

Was the Truth thy Truth, Shelley?— Hush! ^ All-Hail, 

Past doubt, thou gav'st it; and in Truth's bright 

sphere 
Art first of praisers, being most praised here. 

— Dante Gabriel Rossetti 



202 



THE POETRY OF SHELLEY 

See'st thou a Skylark whose glistening winglets 

ascending 
Quiver like pulses beneath the melodious dawn? 
Deep in the heart-yearning distance of heaven it 
flutters — 
Wisdom and beauty and love are the treasures it brings 
down at eve. 

— George Meredith 

SHELLEY 

The odor of a rose : light of a star : 

The essence of a flame blown on by wind, 

That lights and warms all near it, bland and kind, 

But aye consumes itself, as though at war 

With what supports and feeds it; — from afar 

It draws its life, but evermore inclin'd 

To leap into the flame that makes men blind 

Who seek the secret of all things that are. 

Such wert thou, Shelley, bound for airiest goal: 

Interpreter of quintessential things : 

Who mounted ever up on eagle-wings 

Of phantasy: had aim'd at heaven and stole 

Promethean fire for men to be as gods, 

And dwell in free, aerial abodes. 

— Alexander Hay Japp 

SHELLEY 

Shelley, the ceaseless music of thy soul 

Breathes in the Cloud and in the Skylark's song, 
That float as an embodied dream along 
The dewy lids of morning. In the dole 
That haunts the West Wind, in the joyous roll 
Of Arethusan fountains, or among 
The wastes where Ozymandias the strong 
203 



Lies in colossal ruin, thy control 

Speaks in the wedded rhyme. Thy spirit gave 

A fragrance to all nature, and a tone 
To inexpressive silence. Each apart — 

Earth, Air, and Ocean — claims thee as its own; 
The twain that bred thee, and the panting wave 
That clasped thee, like an overflowing heart. 

— John B. Tabb 

TO SHELLEY 

At Shelley's birth, 
The Lark, dawn spirit, with an anthem loud 

Rose from the dusky earth 

To tell it to the Cloud, 
That, like a flower night-folded in the gloom, 

Burst into morning bloom. 

At Shelly's death, 
The Sea, that deemed him an immortal, saw 

A god's extingnished breath, 

and landward, as in awe, 
Upbore him to the altar whence he came, 

And the enkindling flame. 

— John B. Tabb 

SHELLEY'S CENTENARY 

(4th August, 1892) 

Within a narrow span of time, 
Three princes of the realm of rhyme, 
At height of youth or manhood's prime, 

From earth took wing, 
To join the fellowship sublime 

Who, dead, yet sing. 

He, first, his earliest wreath who wove 
Of laurel grown in Latmian grove, 
204 



Conquered by pain and hapless love 

Found calmer home, 
Roofed by the heaven that glows above 

Eternal Rome. 

A fierier soul, its own fierce prey, 
And cumbered with more mortal clay, 
At Missolonghi flamed away, 

And left the air 
Reverberating to this day 

Its loud despair. 

Alike remote from Byron's scorn, 
And Keats' magic as of morn 
Bursting for ever newly-born 

On forests old, 
Waking a hoary world forlorn 

With touch of gold, 

Shelley, the cloud-begot, who grew 
Nourished on air and sun and dew, 
Into that Essence whence he drew 

His life and lyre 
Was fittingly resolved anew 

Through wave and fire. 

'Twas like his rapid soul! 'Twas meet 
That he, who brooked not Time's slow feet, 
With passage thus abrupt and fleet 

Should hurry hence, 
Eager the Great Perhaps to greet 

With Why? and Whence? 

Impatient of the world's fixed way, 
He ne'er could suffer God's delay, 
But all the future in a day 

Would build divine, 
And the whole past in ruins lay, 

An emptied shrine. 
205 



Vain vision! but the glow, the fire, 

The passion of benign desire, 

The glorious yearning, lift him higher 

Than many a soul 
That mounts a million paces nigher 

Its meaner goal. 

And power is his, if naught besides, 
In that thin ether where he rides, 
Above the roar of human tides 

To ascend afar, 
Lost in a storm of light that hides 

His dizzy car. 

Below, the unhastening world toils on, 
And here and there are victories won, 
Some dragon slain, some justice done, 

While, through the skies, 
A meteor rushing on the sun, 

He flares and dies. 

But, as he cleaves yon ether clear 
Notes from the unattempted Sphere 
He scatters to the enchanted ear 

Of earth's dim throng, 
Whose dissonance doth more endear 

The showering song. 

In other shapes than he forecast 

The world is moulded: his fierce blast, — 

His wild assault upon the Past, — 

These things are vain; 
Revolt is transient: what must last 

Is that pure strain. 

Which seems the wandering voices blent, 
Of every virgin element, — 
A sound from ocean caverns sent, — 
206 



An airy call 
From the pavillioned firmament 
O'erdoming all. 

And in this world of worldlings, where 
Souls rust in apathy, and ne'er 
A great emotion shakes the air, 

And life flags tame, 
And rare is noble impulse, rare 

The impassioned aim, 

"lis no mean fortune to have heard 
A singer who, if errors blurred 
His sight, had yet a spirit stirred 

By vast desire, 
And ardour fledging the swift word 

With plumes of fire. 

A creature of impetuous breath, 
Our torpor deadlier than death 
He knew not; whatso'er he saith 

Flashes with life: 
He spurreth men, he quickeneth 

To splendid strife. 

And in his gusts of song he brings 

Wild odours shaken from strange wings, 

And unfamiliar whisperings 

From far lips blown, 
While all the rapturous heart of things 

Throbs through his own, — 

His own that from the burning pyre 
One who had loved his wind swept lyre 
Out of the sharp teeth of the fire 

Unmolten drew, 
Beside the sea that in her ire 
Smote him and slew. 

— William Watson 
207 



JOHN KEATS 
1795-1821 




JOHN KEATS 



FRAGMENT ON KEATS 

Who desired that on his tomb should be inscribed — 

'Here lieth One whose name was writ on water.' 

But, ere the breath that could erase it blew, 
Death, in remorse for that fell slaughter, 
Death, the immortalizing winter, flew 
Athwart the stream, — and time's printless torrent 
grew 
A scroll of crystal, blazoning the name 
Of Adonais! 

— Percy Bysshe Shelley 
(From) 

ADONAIS — AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS. 

XL 

He has outsoared the shadow of our night; 

Envy and calumny and hate and pain, 
And that unrest which men miscall delight, 

Can touch him not and torture not again; 

From the contagion of the world's slow stain 
He is secure, and now can never mourn 

A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain — 
Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, 
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 

XLII 

He is made one with Nature; there is heard 
His voice in all her music, from the moan 

Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird; 
He is a presence to be felt and known 
In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, 

Spreading itself where'er that Power may move 
Which has withdrawn his being to its own; 

Which wields the world with never-wearied love, 

Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above. 

211 



XLIII 

He is a portion of the loveliness 

Which once he made more lovely; he doth bear 
His part, while the One Spirit's plastic stres 

Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling 
there, 

All new successions to the forms they wear; 
Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight 

To its own likeness, as each mass may bear; 
And bursting in its beauty and its might 
From trees and beasts and men into the heaven's light. 

XLIV 

The splendours of the firmament of time 

May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not; 

Like stars to their appointed height they climb, 
And death is a low mist which cannot blot 
The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought 

Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, 
And love and life contend in it, for what 

Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there 

And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air. 

XLV 

The inheritors of unfulfilled renown 

Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought, 
Far in the Unapparent. Chatterton 

Rose pale, — his solemn agony had not 

Yet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought 
And as he fell and as he lived and loved 

Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot, 
Arose; and Lucan, by his death approved: 
Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved. 



212 



XLVI 

And many more, whose names on Earth are dark, 

But whose transmitted effluence cannot die 
So long as fire outlives the parent spark, 

Rose, robed in dazzling immortality. 

'Thou art become as one of us', they cry, 
'It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long 

Swung blind in unascended majesty, 
Silent alone amid an Heaven of Song. 
Assume thy winged throne, thou vesper of our throng.' 

XLVII 

Who mourns for Adonais? Oh, come forth, 

Fond wretch! and know thyself and him aright. 

Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous Earth; 
As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light 
Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might 

Satiate the void circumference; then shrink 
Even to a point within our day and night; 

And keep thy heart light lest it make thee sink 

When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the brink. 

XLVIII 

Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre, 

Oh, not of him, but of our joy: 'tis nought 

That ages, empires, and religions there 

Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought; 
For such as he can lend, — they borrow not 

Glory from those who made the world their prey; 
And he is gathered to the kings of thought 
Who waged contention with their time's decay, 

And of the past are all that cannot pass away. 



213 



XLIX 

Go thou to Rome, — at once the paradise, 
The grave, the city, and the wilderness; 

And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, 
And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress 
The bones of Desolations' nakedness 

Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead 
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access 

Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead 

A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread; 



And gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time 
Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand; 

And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, 
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned 
This refuge for his memory, doth stand 

Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath, 
A field is spread, on which a newer band 

Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death, 

Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished 
breath. 

LI 

Here pause; these graves are all too young as yet 
To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned 

Its change to each; and if the seal is set, 

Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind, 
Break it not thou! too surely shalt thou find 

Thine own well full, if thou returnest home, 
Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind 

Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. 

Wkat Adonais is, why fear we to become? 



214 



Ln 

The One remains, the many change and pass; 

Heaven's light for ever shines, earth's shadows fly; 
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 

Stains the white radiance of eternity, 

Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die, 
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek! 

Follow where all is fled! — Rome's azure sky, 
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak 
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. 

LIII 

Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my heart? 

Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here 
They have departed; thou shouldst now depart! 

A light is past from the revolving year, 

And man, and woman; and what still is dear 
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. 

The soft sky smiles, — the low wind whispers near: 
'Tis Adonais calls! Oh, hasten thither, 
No more let Life divide what Death can join together. 

LIV 

That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, 
That Beauty in which all things work and move, 

That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse 

Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love 
Which through the web of being blindly wove 

By man and beast and earth and air and sea, 

Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 

The fire for which all thirst; now beams on me, 

Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. 



215 



The breath whose might I have invoked in song 

Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven, 
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng 

Whose sails were never to the tempest given; 

The massy earth and sphered skies are riven! 
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar; 

Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, 
The soul of Adonais, like a star, 
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. 

— Percy Bysshe Shelley 

SONNET 

Written in Keats's 'Endymion' 

I saw pale Dian, sitting by the brink 

Of silver falls, the overflow of fountains 
From cloudy steeps; and I grew sad to think 

Endymion's foot was silent on those mountains, 
And he but a hush'd name, that Silence keeps 

In dear remembrance, — lonely, and forlorn, 
Singing it to herself until she weeps 

Tears that perchance still glisten in the morn; — 
And as I mused, in dull imaginings, 

There came a flash of garments, and I knew 
The awful Muse by her harmonious wings 

Charming the air to music as she flew — 
Anon there rose an echo through the vale, 
Gave back Endymion in a dream-like tale. 

— Thomas Hood 
KEATS* 

The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep; 
The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told! 
The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold 
To the red rising moon, and loud and deep 
The nightingale is singing from the steep; 

It is midsummer, but the air is cold; 
♦Copyright 1875 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; 1903 by Ernest 
W. Longfellow. By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. 

216 



Can it be death? Alas, beside the fold 

A shepherd's pipe lies shattered near his sheep. 

Lo! in the moonlight gleams a marble white, 
On which I read: "Here lieth one whose name 
Was writ in water." And was this the meed 

Of his sweet singing? Rather let me write: 
"The smoking flax before it burst to flame 

Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed." 
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS 

"PURPUREOS SPARGAM FLORES" 

The wreath that star-crowned Shelley gave 
Is lying on thy Roman grave, 
Yet on its turf young April sets 
Her store of slender violets; 
Though all the Gods their garlands shower, 
I too may bring one purple flower 
— Alas! what blossom shall I bring, 
That opens in my Northern spring? 
The garden beds have all run wild, 
So trim when I was yet a child; 
Flat plantains and unseemly stalks 
Have crept across the gravel walks; 
The vines are dead, long, long ago, 
The almond buds no longer blow. 
No more upon its mound I see 
The azure, plume-bound fleur-de-lis; 
Where once the tulips used to show, 
In straggling tufts the pansies grow; 
The grass has quenched my white-rayed gem, 
The flowering "Star of Bethlehem," 
Though its long blade of glossy green 
And pallid stripe may still be seen. 
Nature, who treads her nobles down, 
And gives their birthright to the clown, 
Has sown her base-born weedy things 
Above the garden's queens and kings. 
217 



— Yet one sweet flower of ancient race 

Springs in the old familiar place. 

When snows were melting down the vale, 

And Earth unlaced her icy mail, 

And March his stormy trumpet blew, 

And tender green came peeping through, 

I loved the earliest one to seek 

That broke the soil with emerald beak, 

And watch the trembling bells so blue 

Spread on the column as it grew. 

Meek child of earth! thou wilt not shame 

The sweet, dead poet's holy name; 

The God of music gave thee birth, 

Called from the crimson-spotted earth, 

Where, sobbing his young life away, 

His own fair Hyacinthus lay. 

— The hyacinth my garden gave 

Shall lie upon that Roman grave! 

— Oliver Wendell Holme s 



{From) 

AURORA LEIGH 

By Keats's soul, the man who never stepped 
In gradual progress like another man, 
But, turning grandly on his central self, 
Ensphered himself in twenty perfect yfears, 
And died, not young (the life of a long life 
Distilled to a mere drop, falling like a tear 
Upon the world's cold cheek to make it burn 
Forever). 

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning 



218 



TO THE SPIRIT OF KEATS 

Great soul, thou sittest with me in my room, 
Uplifting me with thy vast, quiet eyes, 
On whose full orbs, with kindly lustre, lies 
The twilight warmth of ruddy ember-gloom: 
Thy clear, strong tones will oft bring sudden bloom 
Of hope secure, to him who lonely cries, 
Wrestling with the young poet's agonies, 
Neglect and scorn, which seem a certain doom: 
Yes ! the few words which, like great thunder-drops, 
Thy large heart down to earth shook doubtfully, 
Thrilled by the inward lightning of its might, 
Serene and pure, like gushing joy of light, 
Shall track the eternal chords of Destiny, 
After the moon-led pulse of ocean stops. 

— James Russell Lowell 

TO THE MEMORY OF KEATS 

(on coming into possession of his copy 
of "the rogue: OR GUZMAN de al- 

FARACHE. " LONDON, 1634)' 

Great Father mine, deceased ere I was born, 

And in a classic land renowned of old; 

Thy life was happy, but thy death forlorn, 

Buried in violets and Roman mold. 

Thou hast the Laurel, Master of my soul! 

Thy name, thou saidst, was writ in water — No, 

For while clouds float on high, and billows roll, 

Thy name shall worshipped be. Will mine be so? 

I kiss thy words as I would kiss thy face, 

And put thy book most reverently away. 

Girt by thy peers, thou hast an honored place, 

Among the kingliest — Byron, Wordsworth, Gray. 

If tears will fill mine eyes, am I to blame? 

"O smile away the shades, for this is fame!" 

— Richard Henry Stoddard 
219 



JOHN KEATS 

The weltering London ways where children weep 
And girls whom none call maidens laugh, — 

strange road 
Miring his outward steps, who inly trode 

The bright Castalian brink and Latmos' steep: — 

Even such his life's cross-paths; till deathly deep 
He toiled through sands of lethe; and long pain, 
Weary with labor spurned and love found vain, 

In dead Rome's sheltering shadow wrapped his sleep. 

O pang-dowered Poet, whose reverberant lips 
And heart-strung lyre awoke the Moon's eclipse, — 

Thota whom the daisies glory in growing o'er, — 
Their fragrance clings around thy name, not writ 
But rumor'd in water, while the fame of it 

Along Time's flood goes echoing evermore. 

— Dante Gabriel Rossetti 



THE POETRY OF KEATS 

The song of a nightingale sent thro' a slumbrous valley, 
Low-lidded with twilight, and tranced with the 

dolorous sound, 
Tranced with a tender enchantment; the yearn- 
ing of passion 
That wins immortality even while panting delirious 
with death. 

— George Meredith 



220 



AN INSCRIPTION IN ROME* 

(piazza di spagna) 

Something there is in Death not all unkind, 
He hath a gentler aspect, looking back; 
For flowers may bloom in the dread thunder's track, 
And even the cloud that struck with light was lined. 

Thus, when the heart is silent, speaks the mind; 

But there are moments when comes rushing, black 

And fierce upon us, the old, awful lack, 

And Death once more is cruel, senseless, blind. 

So when I saw beside a Roman portal 

"In this house died John Keats" — for tears that sprung 
I could no further read. O bard immortal ! 

Not for thy fame's sake — but so young, so young; 
Such beauty vanished, spilled such heavenly wine, 
All quenched that power of deathless song divine! 

— Richard Watson Gilder 

KEATS* 

Touch not with dark regret his perfect fame, 
Sighing, "Had he but lived he had done so;" 
Or, "Were his heart not eaten out with woe 
John Keats had won a prouder, mightier name!" 

Take him for what he was and did — nor blame 
Blind fate for all he suffered. Thou shouldst know 
Souls such as his escape no mortal blow — 
No agony of joy, or sorrow, or shame! 

"Whose name was writ in water!" What large 
laughter 
Among the immortals when that word was brought ! 
Then when his fiery spirit rose flaming after 

High toward the topmost heaven of heavens up-caught ! 
"All hail! our younger brother!" Shakespeare said, 
And Dante nodded his imperial head. 

— Richard Watson Gilder 

*By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company . 
221 



KEATS 

Rare voice, the last from vernal Hellas sent, 
And fresh Arcadian hills, why mute so soon? 
Did the Gods grudge their unexpected boon, 
Anjd Phoebus envy back the lute he lent? 

So sudden came thy song, so sudden went! 
O well for thee — free of life's fiery noon, 
Free as a fairy underneath the moon, 
But ill for lis bereft of ravishment. 

Not for our skies, piper of Grecian breed, 

Nor suits our autumn melody with spring's; 
So hast thou fled on bright ethereal steed 

With all thy young and rich imaginings 

To be great-hearted Homer's Ganymede, 
Nor dropped one feather of thy shining wings. 

— Erasmus Henry Brodie 



222 



ALFRED TENNYSON 
1809—1892 




ALFRED TENNYSON 



TO ALFRED TENNYSON 

Long have I known thee as thou art in song, 
And long enjoy'd the perfume that exhales 
From thy pure soul, and odour sweet entails 
And permanence, on thoughts that float along 
The stream of life, to join the passive throng 
Of shades and echoes that are memory's being 
Hearing we hear not, and we see not seeing, 
If passion, fancy, faith move not among 
The never-present moments of reflection. 
Long have I view'd thee in the crystal sphere 
Of verse, that, like the beryl, makes appear 
Visions of hope, begot of recollection. 
Knowing thee now, a real earth-treading man, 
Not less I love thee, and no more I can. 

— Hartley Coleridge 

WAPENTAKE 

TO ALFRED TENNYSON* 

Poet! I come to touch thy lance with mine; 
Not as a knight, who on the listed field 
Of tourney touched his adversary's shield 
In token of defiance, but in sign 

Of homage to the mastery, which is thine, 

In English song; nor will I keep concealed, 
And voiceless as a rivulet frost-congealed, 
My admiration for thy verse divine. 

Not of the howling dervishes of song, 

Who craze the brain with their delirious dance, 
Art thou, O sweet historian of the heart! 

Therefore to thee the laurel-leaves belong, 
To thee our love and our allegiance, 
For thy allegiance to the poet's art. 

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

*Copy right 1878 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; 1906 by Ernest 
W. Longfellow. By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. 

225 



ALFRED TENNYSON 



THE LAND 8 VIGIL 



How many a face throughout the Imperial Isle, 
From Kentish shores to Scottish hill or hall, 
From Cambrian vales to Windsor's royal pile, 

Turned sadly towards one House more sad than all, — 

Turned day by day, fear-blanched ! When evening's 
pall 
Shrouded a day that scarce had heart to smile, 
How oft sad eyes, spelled by one thought the 
while, 

Not seeing, seemed to see a taper small, 

Night after night, flashed from one casement high! 

Let these men sing his praise! Others there are 

Who fitlier might have sung them in old time, 
Since they loved best who loved him in his prime. 

Their youth, and his, expired long since and far. 

Now he is gone, it seems "again to die." 

II 

WESTMINSTER ABBEY 

'Tis well! Not always nations are ingrate! 

He gave his country "of his best;" and she 

Gave to her bard in glorious rivalry 
Her whole great heart. A People and a State 
Had met, through love a tomb to consecrate. 

In the Abbey old each order and degree 

Low knelt, and upward gazing seemed to see, 
Not that dark vault, but Heaven's expanding gate. 

226 



O'er him the death-song he had made they sung:- 
Thus, when in Rome the Prince of Painters died, 
His Art's last marvel o'er his bier was hung, 

At once in heavenly hope and honest pride: 
Thus England honoured him she loved that day; 
Thus many prayed — as England's Saints will pray. 



Ill 



THE POET 

None sang of Love more nobly; few so well; 

Of Friendship none with pathos so profound; 

Of Duty sternliest-proved when myrtle-crowned; 
Of English grove and rivulet, mead and dell; 
Great Arthur's Legend he alone dared tell; 

Milton and Dry den feared to tread that ground; 

For him alone o'er Camelot's faery bound 
The "horns of Elf -land" blew their magic spell. 

Since Shakespeare and since Wordsworth none hath 
sung 

So well his England's greatness; none hath given 

Reproof more fearless or advice more sage. 
None inlier taught how near to earth is Heaven; 

With what vast concords Nature's harp is strung; 

How base false pride; faction's fanatic rage. 



IV 



THE REWARD 

The land, whose loveliness in verse of thine 
Shows lovelier yet than prank'd on Nature's page, 
Shall prove thy poet, in some future age 

Sing thee, her Poet not in measured line 
Or metric stave, but music more benign; 
Shall point to British Galahads who wage 
227 



Battle on Wrong; to British maids who gage, 
Like Agnes, heart and hope to Love divine. 

Worn men, like thy Ulysses, scorning fear, 

Shall tempt strange seas beneath an alien star; 
Old men, from cherished haunts and households 
dear 
Summoned by death to realms unknown and far, 
Thy "Silent Voices" from on high shall hear, — 
With happier auspice cross thy "harbour bar." 

— Aubrey De Vere 

TENNYSON 

The larks of song that high o'erhead 
Sung joyous in my boyhood's sky, 

Save one, are with the silent dead, 

Those larks that knew to soar so high. 

But still with ever surer flight, 

One singer of unfailing trust 
Chants at the gates of morn and night 

Great songs that lift us from the dust. 

And heavenward call tired hearts that grieve, 

Beneath the vast horizon given 
With larger breadth of morn and eve, 

To this one lark alone in heaven. 

— S. Weir Mitchell 

TO LORD TENNYSON 

ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY 
AUGUST 6, 1889 

Master and seer! too swift on noiseless feet 

Thy hurrying decades fleet with stealthy pace; 
Yet not the less thy voice is clear and sweet, 

288 



And still thy genius mingles strength with grace. 

On thy broad brow alone and reverend face 
Thy fourscore winters show, not on thy mind. 

Stay, Time, a little while thy head-long chase! 
Or passing, one Immortal leave behind; 
For we are weak, and changeful as the wind. 

For him long since the dying swan would sing, 

The dead soul pine in splendid misery. 
He winged the legend of the blameless King, 

And crossed to Lotusland the enchanted sea; 

Heard the twin voices strive for mastery, 
Faithful and faithless; and with prescient thought 

Saw Woman rising in the days to be 
To heights of knowledge in the past unsought; 
These his eye marked, and those his wisdom taught. 

And he it was whose musing ear o'erheard 

The love-tale sweet in death and madness end; 
Who sang the deathless dirge, whose every word 

Fashions a golden statue for his friend. 

May all good things his waning years attend 
Who told of Rizpah mourning for her dead! 

Or in verse sweet as pitying ruth could lend 
The childish sufferer on her hopeless bed; 
Thoughts, pure and high, of precious fancy bred. 

His it is to scan with patient eye 

The book of Nature, writ with herb and tree; 

The buds of March unfold, the lush flowers die, 
When sighs of Autumn wail o'er land and sea, 

And those great orbs which wheel from age to age, 
Cold, unregarding fires that seem to blight 

All yearning hope and chill all noble rage; 
And yet were dead, and void, maybe, of light, 
Till first they swam upon a mortal's sight. 

229 



Master and friend, stay yet, for there is none 
Worthy to take thy place to-day, or wear 

Thy laurel when thy singing-days are done. 
As yet the halls of song are mute and bare, 
Nor voice melodious wakes the tuneless air, 

Save some weak faltering accents faintly heard. 
Stay with us; 'neath thy spell the world grows 
fair. 

Our hearts revive, our inmost souls are stirred, 

And all our English race awaits thy latest word! 

— Sir Lewis Morris 

TENNYSON* 

I 

Shakespeare and Milton — what third blazoned 
name 
Shall lips of after-ages link to these? 
His who, beside the wild encircling seas, 
Was England's voice with one acclaim, 
For threescore years; whose word of praise was 
fame, 
Whose scorn gave pause to man's iniquities. 

II 

What strain was his in that Crimean war? 
A bugle-call in battle; a low breath, 
Plaintive and sweet, above the fields of 
death ! 
So year by year the music rolled afar, 
From Euxine wastes to flowery Kandahar, 
Bearing the laurel or the cypress wreath. 

Ill 

Others shall have their little space of time, 
Their proper niche and bust, then fade away 
Into the darkness, poets of a day; 
*Copyright 1890 by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. By permission of 
Houghton Mifflin Company. 

230 



But thou, O builder of enduring rhyme, 
Thou shalt not pass! Thy fame in every clime 
On earth shall live where Saxon speech has sway. 

IV 

Waft me this verse across the winter sea, 
Through light and dark, through mist and blind- 
ing sleet, 
O winter winds, and lay it at his feet; 
Though the poor gift betray my poverty, 
At his feet lay it: it may chance that he 
Will find no gift, where reverence is, unmeet. 

— Thomas Bailey Aldrich 



ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 

IN MEMORIAM, 1892 

No more our Nightingale shall sing his lay; 

The groves are mute, for he has taken flight; 

He whose mellifluous voice was our delight 

Has, by his death, brought sorrow and dismay. 
There is a beauty gone from out the day; 

There is a planet fallen from the night; 

A splendor is withdrawn from out our sight, 

A glory now for ever passed away. 
A thousand hearts unused to bleed have bled, 

And drops of pity dim the hard world's eye; 

And oh, what memories of the day-spring fled ! 
What vanished hopes, — what first love's ecstasy! 

Ah, we have lost what time can ne'er supply, 

For now the Poet of our Youth is dead! 

— Lloyd Mifflin 



231 



TO ALFRED TENNYSON 

They told me in their shadowy phrase, 

Caught from a tale gone by, 
That Arthur, King of Cornish praise, 

Died not, and would not die. 

Dreams had they, that in fairy bowers 

Their living warrior lies, 
Or wears a garland of the flowers 

That grow in Paradise. 

I read the rune with deeper ken, 

And thus the myth I trace: — 
A bard should rise, mid future men, 

The mightiest of his race. 

He would great Arthur's deeds rehearse 

On gray Dundagel's shore; 
And so the King in laurell'd verse 

Shall live, and die no more! 

— Robert Stephen Hawker 

TENNYSON 

IN LUCEM TRANSITUS 
OCTOBER, 1892 

From the misty shores of midnight, touched 

with splendours of the moon, 
To the singing tides of heaven, and the light 

more clear than noon, 
Passed a soul that grew to music till it was with 

God in tune. 

Brother of the greatest poets, true to nature, 

true to art; 
Lover of Immortal Love, uplifter of the human 

heart; 



Who shall cheer us with high music, who shall 

sing, if thou depart? 
Silence here — for love is silent, gazing on the 

lessening sail; 
Silence here — for grief is voiceless when the 

mighty minstrels fail; 
Silence here — but far beyond us, many voices 

crying, Hail! 

— Henry Van Dyke 

IN MEMORIAM— ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 

Last left of the mortal Immortals, art thou too taken at 

last, 
Loved part so long of the present, must thou too pass to 

the past? 
Thou hast lain in the moonlight and lapsed in a glory from 

rest into rest, 
And still is the teeming brain, and the warm heart cold 

in the breast, 
And frozen the exquisite fancy, and mute the magical 

tongue, 
From our century's tuneful morn to its hushing eve that 

had sung. 
Crowned poet and crown of poets, whose wealth and whose 

wit could combine 
Great echoes of old-world Homer, the grandeur of Milton's 

line, 
The sad sweet glamour of Virgil, the touch of Horace 

divine, 
Theocritus' musical sigh, and Catullus daintily fine ! 
Poet of Art and of Nature, of sympathies old and new, 
Who read in the earth and the heavens, the fair and the 

good and the true, 
And who wrote no line and no word that the world will 

ever rue ! 
Singer of God and of men, the stars were touched by thy 

brow, 

233 



But thy feet were on English meadows, true singer of 

England thou! 
We lose thee from sight, but thy brothers with honour 

receive thee now, 
From earliest Chaucer and Spenser to those who were 

nearer allied, 
The rainbow radiance of Shelley, and Byron's furious 

pride, 
Rich Keats and austere Wordsworth, and Browning who 

yesterday died 
By sunny channels of Venice, and Arnold from Thames' 

green side. 
Knells be rung, and wreaths be strung, and dirges be sung 

for the laurelled hearse, 
Our tears and our flowers fade scarce more fast than our 

transient verse, 
For even as the refluent crowds from the glorious Abbey 

disperse, 
They are all forgotten, and we go back to our fleeting 

lives; 
But we are the dying, and thou the living, whose work 

survives, 
The sum and the brief of our time, to report to the after 

years 
Its thoughts and its loves and its hopes and its doubts 

and its faiths and its fears; 
They live in thy lines forever, and well may our era rejoice 
To speak to the ages to come with so sweet and so noble 

a voice. 

— T. Herbert Warren 



234 



TENNYSON 

(WESTMINSTER ABBEY: OCTOBER 12, 1892) 
GIB DIESEN TODTEN MIR HERAUS!* 

(The Minster speaks) 

Bring me my dead ! 

To me that have grown, 

Stone laid upon stone, 

As the stormy brood 

Of English blood 

Has wax'd and spread 

And filTd the world, 

With sails unfurPd; 

With men that may not lie; 

With thoughts that cannot die. 

Bring me my dead! 

Into the storied hall, 

Where I have garner'd all 

My harvest without weed; 

My chosen fruits of goodly seed, 

And lay him gently down among 

The men of state, the men of song : 

The men that would not suffer wrong: 

The thought-worn chieftains of the mind: 

Head-servants of the human kind. 

Bring me my dead! 

The autumn sun shall shed 

Its beams athwart the bier's 

Heap'd blooms: a many tears 

Shall flow; his words, in cadence sweet and strong, 

Shall voice the full hearts of the silent throng. 

Bring me my dead! 

*Don Carlos. 
235 



And oh! sad wedded mourner, seeking still 
For vanish'd hand clasp : drinking in thy fill 
Of holy grief; forgive, that pious theft 
Robs thee of all, save memories, left: 
Not thine to kneel beside the grassy mound 
While dies the western glow; and all around 
Is silence; and the shadows closer creep 
And whisper softly: AH must fall asleep. 

— Thomas Henry Hurley 

TO LORD TENNYSON 
(with a volume of verse) 

Master and mage, our prince of song, whom Time, 
In this your autumn mellow and serene, 
Crowns ever with fresh laurels, nor less green 

Than garlands dewy from your verdurous prime; 

Heir of the riches of the whole world's rhyme, 
Dow'r'd with the Doric grace, the Mantuan mien, 
With Arno's depth and Avon's golden sheen; 

Singer to whom the singing ages climb, 

Convergent; — if the youngest of the choir 

May snatch a flying splendour from your name 

Making his page illustrious, and aspire 
For one rich moment your regard to claim, 

Suffer him at your feet to lay his lyre 

And touch the skirts and fringes of your fame. 

— William Watson 

LACHRYMAE MUSARUM 

Low, like another's, lies the laurelled head: 
The life that seemed a perfect song is o'er: 
Carry the last great bard to his last bed. 
Land that he loved, thy noblest voice is mute. 
Land that he loved, that loved him ! nevermore 
Meadow of thine, smooth lawn or wild sea-shore, 
Gardens of odorous bloom and tremulous fruit, 



Or woodlands old, like Druid couches spread, 
The master's feet shall tread. 
Death's little rift hath rent the faultless lute: 
The singer of undying songs is dead. 

Lo, in this season pensive-hued and grave, 
While fades and falls the doomed, reluctant leaf 
From withered Earth's fantastic coronal, 
With wandering sighs of forest and of wave 
Mingles the murmur of a people's grief 
For him whose leaf shall fade not, neither fall. 
He hath fared forth, beyond these suns and showers. 
For us, the autumn glow, the autumn flame, 
And soon the winter silence shall be ours : 
Him the eternal spring of fadeless fame 
Crowns with no mortal flowers. 

Rapt though he be from us, 
Virgil salutes him, and Theocritus; 
Catullus, mightiest-brained Lucretius, each 
Greets him, their brother, on the Stygian beach; 
Proudly a gaunt right hand doth Dante reach; 
Milton and Wordsworth bid him welcome home; 
Bright Keats to touch his raiment doth beseech; 
Coleridge, his locks aspersed with fairy foam, 
Calm Spenser, Chaucer suave, 
His equal friendship crave: 
And godlike spirits hail him guest, in speech 
Of Athens, Florence, Weimar, Stratford, Rome. 

What needs his laurel our ephemeral tears, 
To save from visitation of decay? 
Not in this temporal sunlight, now, that bay 
Blooms, nor to perishable mundane ears 
Sings he with lips of transitory clay; 
For he hath joined the chorus of his peers 
In habitations of the perfect day: 
His earthly notes a heavenly audience hears, 
237 



And more melodious are henceforth the spheres, 
Enriched with music stoPn from earth away. 

He hath returned to regions whence he came, 
Him doth the spirit divine 
Of universal loveliness reclaim. 
All nature is his shrine. 
Seek him henceforward in the wind and sea, 
In earth's and air's emotion or repose, 
In every star's august serenity, 
And in the rapture of the flaming rose. 
There seek him if ye would not seek in vain, 
There, in the rhythm and music of the Whole; 
Yea, and for ever in the human soul 
Made stronger and more beauteous by his strain. 

For lo! creation's self is one great choir, 
And what is nature's order but the rhyme 
Whereto the worlds keep time, 

And all things move with all things from their prime? 
Who shall expound the mystery of the lyre? 
In far retreats of elemental mind 
Obscurely comes and goes 
The imperative breath of song, that as the wind 
Is trackless, and oblivious whence it blows. 

Demand of lillies wherefore they are white, 
Extort her crimson secret from the rose, 
But ask not of the Muse that she disclose 
The meaning of the riddle of her might: 
Somewhat of all things sealed and recondite, 
Save the enigma of herself, she knows. 
The master could not tell, with all his lore, 
Wherefore he sang, or whence the mandate sped: 
Ev'n as the linnet sings, so I, he said; — 
Ah, rather as the imperial nightingale, 
That held in trance the ancient Attic shore, 
And charms the ages with the notes that o'er 
238 



All woodland chants immortally prevail ! 
And now, from our vain plaudits greatly fled, 
He with diviner silence dwells instead, 
And on no earthly sea with transient roar, 
Unto no earthly airs, he trims his sail, 
But far beyond our vision and our hail 
Is heard for ever and is seen no more. 

No more, O never now, 
Lord of the lofty and the tranquil brow 
Whereon nor snows of time 
Have fall'n, nor wintry rime, 
Shall men behold thee, sage and mage sublime. 
Once, in his youth obscure, 
The maker of this verse, which shall endure 
By splendour of its theme that cannot die, 
Beheld thee eye to eye, 
And touched through thee the hand 
Of every hero of thy race divine, 
Ev'n to the sire of all the laurelled line, 
The sightless wanderer on the Ionian strand, 
With soul as healthful as the poignant brine, 
Wide as his skies and radiant as his seas, 
Starry from haunts of his Familiars nine, 
Glorious Maeonides. 
Yea, I beheld thee, and behold thee yet: 
Thou hast forgotten, but can I forget? 
The accents of thy pure and sovereign tongue, 
Are they not ever goldenly impressed 
On memory's palimpsest? 
I see the wizard locks like night that hung, 
I tread the floor thy hallowing feet have trod; 
I see the hands a nation's lyre that strung, 
The eyes that looked through life and gazed on God. 

The seasons change, the winds they shift and veer; 
The grass of yesteryear 
Is dead; the birds depart, the groves decay: 



Empires dissolve and peoples disappear: 

Song passes not away. 

Captains and conquerors leave a little dust, 

And kings a dubious legend of their reign; 

The swords of Caesars, they are less than rust: 

The poet doth remain. 

Dead is Augustus, Maro is alive; 

And thou, the Mantuan of our age and clime, 

Like Virgil shalt thy race and tongue survive, 

Bequeathing no less honeyed words to time, 

Embalmed in amber of eternal rhyme, 

And rich with sweets from every Muse's hive; 

While to the measure of the cosmic rune 

For purer ears thou shalt thy lyre attune, 

And heed no more the hum of idle praise 

In that great calm our tumults cannot reach, 

Master who crowd'st our immelodious days 

With flower of perfect speech. 

— William Watson 



240 



ROBERT BROWNING 

1812-1889 




ROBERT BROWNING 



ROBERT BROWNING 

There is delight in singing, though none hear 

Beside the singer; and there is delight 

In praising, though the praiser sit alone 

And see the prais'd far off him, far above. 

Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's, 

Therefore on him no speech! and brief for thee, 

Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale, 

No man hath walk'd along our roads with step 

So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue 

So varied in discourse. But warmer climes 

Give brighter plumage, stronger wing: the breeze 

Of Alpine heights thou playest with, borne on 

Beyond Sorrento and Amalfi, where 

The Siren waits thee, singing song for song. 

— Walter Savage Landor 

ROBERT BROWNING 

Gone from us ! that strong singer of late days — 
Sweet singer should be strong — who, tarrying here, 
Chose still rough music for his themes austere, 
Hard-headed, aye but tender-hearted lays, 
Carefully careless, garden half, half maze. 
His thoughts he sang, deep thoughts to thinkers dear, 
Now flashing under gleam of smile or tear, 
Now veiled in language like a breezy haze 
Chance-pierced by sunbeams from the lake it covers. 
He sang man's ways — not heights of sage or saint, 
Not highways broad, not haunts endeared to lovers; 
He sang life's byways, sang its angles quaint, 
Its Runic lore inscribed on stave or stone; 
Song's short-hand strain — its key oft his alone. 

—Aubrey De Verb 



243 



ROBERT BROWNING 

Gone from our eyes, a loss for evermore, 
Gone to pursue within an ampler sphere 
The aims that wing'd thy soaring spirit here! 
Gone where she waits thee, who when living bore 
A heart, like thine, vein'd with love's purest ore! 
Gone to behold with eyes serene and clear 
The world, that to thy life was ever near 
In gleams, now perfect dawn, of heavenly lore ! 
Gone from our eyes that noble gracious head, 
The quick, keen glance, the welcoming frank smile, 
Hush'd, too, the voice with its strong manly ring, 
But not the strains in which our souls are fed 
With thoughts that life of half its pain beguile, 
And hopes of what the great Beyond shall bring! 

— Sir Theodore Martin 

A SEQUENCE OF SONNETS 
ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT BROWNING 

I 

The clearest eyes in all the world they read 

With sense more keen and spirit of sight more true 
Than burns and thrills in sunrise, when the dew 
Flames, and absorbs the glory round it shed, 
As they the light of ages quick and dead, 
Closed now, forsake us: yet the shaft that slew 
Can slay not one of all the works we knew, 
Nor death discrown that many-laurelled head. 

The works of words whose life seems lightning wrought, 

And moulded of unconquerable thought, 
And quickened with imperishable flame, 

Stand fast and shine and smile, assured that nought 
May fade of all their myriad-moulded fame, 
Nor England's memory clasp not Browning's name. 



244 



II 

Death, what hast thou to do with one for whom 

Time is not lord, but servant? What least part 

Of all the fire that fed his living heart, 
Of all the light more keen than sundawn's bloom 
That lit and led his spirit, strong as doom 

And bright as hope, can aught thy breath may dart 

Quench? Nay, thou knowest he knew thee what thou 
art, 
A shadow born of terror's barren womb, 
That brings not forth save shadows. What art thou, 
To dream, albeit thou breathe upon his brow, 

That power on him is given thee, — that thy breath 
Can make him less than love acclaims him now, 

And hears all time sound back the word it saith? 

What part hast thou then in his glory, Death? 

Ill 

A graceless doom it seems that bids us grieve: 
Venice and winter, hand in deadly hand, 
Have slain the lover of her sunbright strand 

And singer of a stormbright Christmas Eve. 

A graceless guerdon we that loved receive 
For all our love, from that the dearest land 
Love worshipped ever. Blithe and soft and bland, 

Too fair for storm to scathe or fire to cleave, 

Shone on our dreams and memories evermore 

The domes, the towers, the mountains and the shore 
That gird or guard thee, Venice : cold and black 

Seems now the face we loved as he of yore. 

We have given thee love — no stint, no stay, no lack: 
What gift, what gift is this thou hast given us back? 

IV 

But he — to him, who knows what gift is thine, 
Death? Hardly may we think or hope, when we 
Pass likewise thither where to-night is he, 

MS 



Beyond the irremeable outer seas that shine 
And darken round such dreams as half divine 
Some sunlit harbour in that starless sea 
Where gleams no ship to windward or to lee, 
To read with him the secret of thy shrine. 

There too, as here, may song, delight, and love, 
The nightingale, the sea-bird, and the dove, 

Fulfil with joy the splendour of the sky 
Till all beneath wax bright as all above : 

But none of all that search the heavens, and try 
The sun, may match the sovereign eagle's eye. 



Among the wondrous ways of men and time 
He went as one that ever found and sought 
And bore in hand the lamplikfe spirit of thought 
To illume with instance of its fire sublime 
The dusk of many a cloudlik,e age and clime. 

No spirit in shape of light and darkness wrought, 
No faith, no fear, no dream, no rapture, nought 
That blooms in wisdom, nought that burns in crime, 
No virtue girt and armed and helmed with light, 
No love more lovely than the snows are white, 

No serpent sleeping in some dead soul's tomb, 
No song-bird singing from some live soul's height, 
But he might hear, interpret, or illume 
With sense invasive as the dawn of doom. 

What secret thing of splendour or of shade 
Surmised in all those wandering ways wherein 
Man, led of love and life and death and sin, 
Strays, climbs, or cowers, allured, absorbed, afraid, 
Might not the strong and sunlike sense invade 
Of that full soul that had for aim to win 
Light, silent over time's dark toil and din, 
246 



Life, at whose touch death fades as dead things fade? 
O spirit of man, what mystery moves in thee 
That he might know not of in spirit, and see 

The heart within the heart that seems to strive, 
The life within the life that seems to be, 

And hear, through all thy storms that whirl and drive, 

The living sound of all men's souls alive? 

VII 

He held no dream worth waking: so he said, 

He who stands now on death's triumphal steep, 
Awakened out of life wherein we sleep 

And dream of what he knows and sees, being dead. 

But never death for him was dark or dread : 

'Look forth' he bade the soul, and fear not. Weep, 
All ye that trust not in his truth, and keep 

Vain memory's vision of a vanished head 

As all that lives of all that once was he 

Save that which lightens from his word : but we, 
Who, seeing the sunset-coloured waters roll, 

Yet know the sun subdued not of the sea, 

Nor weep nor doubt that still the spirit is whole, 
And life and death but shadows of the soul. 

— Algernon Charles Swinburne 

December 15. 



(From) 

ROBERT BROWNING: CHIEF POET OF THE 

AGE 

O strong-souled singer of high themes and wide — 
Thrice noble in thy work and lif e alike — 
Thy genius glides upon a sea whose tide 
Heaves with a pain and passion infinite ! 
Men's hearts laid bare beneath thy pitying touch; 
Strong words that comfort all o'er-wearied much; 

247 



Thoughts whose calm cadence moulds our spirit-life, 
Gives strength to bravely bear amid world-strife; 
And one large Hope, full orb'd as summer sun, 
That souls shall surely meet when LIFE is won ! 
So round thy heart our grateful thanks entwine; 
Men are the better for these songs of thine ! 
At eve thy muse doth o'er us mellower swell, 
Strong with the strength of life lived long and well. 

— William G. Kingsland 



THE BURIAL OF ROBERT BROWNING 

Upon St. Michael's Isle 
They laid him for awhile 
That he might feel the Ocean's full embrace, 
And wedded be 
To that wide sea — 
The subject and the passion of his race. 
As Thetis, from some lovely underground 
Springing, she girds him round 
With lapping sound 
And silent space: 
Then, on more honor bent, 
She sues the firmament, 
And bids the hovering, western clouds combine 
To spread their sabled amber on her lustrous brine. 

It might not be 

He should lie free 
Forever in the soft light of the sea, 

For lo ! one came, 

Of step more slow than fame, 
Stooped over him — we heard her breathe his name — 

And, as the light drew back, 

Bore him across the track 
Of the subservient waves that dare not foil 
That veiled, maternal figure of its spoil. 
248 



Ah ! where will she put by 

Her journeying majesty 
She hath left the lands of the air and sun; 
She will take no rest till her course be run. 

Follow her far, follow her fast, 
Until at last, 

Within a narrow transept led, 
Lo ! she unwraps her face to pall her dead. 

Tis England who has travelled far, 
England who brings 
Fresh splendor to her galaxy of Kings. 
We kiss her feet, her hands 
Where eloquence she stands; 
Nor dare to lead 
A wailful choir about the poet dumb 
Who is become 
Part of the glory that her sons would bleed 
To save from scar; 
Yea, hers in very deed 
As Runnymede, 
Or Trafalgar. 

— Michael Field 



249 



THE TWELFTH OF DECEMBER 

On this day Browning died? 
Say, rather: On the tide 
That throbs against those glorious palace walls; 
That rises-pauses-falls 

With melody and myriad-tinted gleams; 

On that enchanted tide, 
Half real, and half poured from lovely dreams, 
A soul of beauty, — a white rhythmic flame, — 
Passed singing fourth into the Eternal 
Beauty whence it came. 

— Richard Watson Gilder 



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